


once upon a dream

by thedeathchamber



Series: Psychic / FBI [1]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Law Enforcement, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Anal Sex, Angst, Blow Jobs, Bottom Louis, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Enemies to Lovers, Friendship/Love, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Romance, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-11
Updated: 2016-10-11
Packaged: 2018-08-20 12:32:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 33,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8249207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedeathchamber/pseuds/thedeathchamber
Summary: Louis is psychic and gets caught in the middle of a murder investigation led by FBI Special Agent Harry Styles.
aka. the Medium/Criminal Minds-inspired AU no one ever asked for.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> TRIGGER WARNINGS:  
> Implied/referenced past suicide attempt and suicidal ideation.  
> Unsafe practices involving prescription medicine and alcohol.  
> The violence is about as explicit as a Criminal Minds episode, so PG-13? But there's references to murder and violent death.  
> So if you're not comfortable reading that, you might want to skip this story.
> 
> I was torn between a happy Psych AU (how well do Louis and Liam fit as Shawn Spencer and Gus?) or this angst fest. Angst wins. Always.  
> I never intended it to be this long, but it got away from me.
> 
> \--
> 
> Shout out to the lovely [lisa](http://setsailtomorrow.tumblr.com) who was kind enough to rec me on [tumblr](http://setsailtomorrow.tumblr.com/post/151673446686)!
> 
> And to [neida](http://louisquinnzel.tumblr.com/) who did the most amazing [edit](http://louisquinnzel.tumblr.com/post/151693079665/once-upon-a-dream-by-thedeathchamber-louis-is)!
> 
> \- 
> 
> And if you have Spotify listen to the playlist [Andie](http://colormecloudy.tumblr.com/) put together. It's [perfect!](https://open.spotify.com/user/1254223215/playlist/1cF4wnlwkqfUTJVql09G1U)

The alarm on his phone goes off at 9:00 PM. The shrill beeping next to his head has Louis pulling the pillow over his head with a groan and knocking the phone from the bed to the floor in the process. It hits the wood with a thump and keeps on vibrating and beeping until Louis sticks an arm out from under the covers to grope for the phone, swiping it silent with his thumb in a practiced movement once he gets a hold of it.

He rolls onto his back, clawing at his neck to untangle himself from the earphone cables; the tinny sound of Chopin coming out of the earbuds cuts off when he finds his iPod among the sheets and turns it off. After another minute he sits up and turns on the light, squinting at the mess of his bedroom: clothes and shoes strewn on the floor, a pile of books that had toppled off the chest of drawers and he’d never bothered to pick up. The bedside table is littered with empty pill bottles and overlapping ring stains from his regular nightcap.

He swings his legs off the side of the bed just as the alarm goes off again: 9:10 PM.

He's has been following the same routine for about three years now. Routine was supposed to be good for him, but at this point it’s like living in death row.

Louis likes to think he was normal, once. He can’t quite remember, but he likes to think there must have been a time, way back, when he wasn’t like this. When he could touch people without being afraid of what he’d find out. When he didn’t lose himself for seconds or minutes or hours. When his dreams didn’t fill him with horror and fear. His dreams that aren’t dreams but vivid impressions of moments in lives that aren’t his own. In his dreams he is not himself; he sees through the eyes of other people and feels through a different body. He dreams of people whose faces he later sees on the television or the papers when he can make himself look. Sometimes he recognizes himself in the pictures picked out by grieving families looking for answers, or justice, or revenge. And sometimes he recognizes the face in the mugshot. Other times he knows when he reads the account of their death and for him it is a memory and not a story.

He might have been normal once but he hasn’t been for a long time. For just as long a time he’s been trying to make it stop. He hasn’t succeeded, but he’s figured out that three sleeping pills before bed usually means a dreamless sleep, if not a restful one. He’s found that chasing the pills down with a bit of alcohol works even better. He still has dreams often enough, though, that he thinks, every once in a while, about taking more than three pills. Eight will knock him out for an entire day, he knows. Thirty six pills will land him in hospital but won’t kill him... he’s figured that out too.

The downside of sleeping pills is the drowsiness, which persists even as he drives to work. But the roads are pretty much empty at that hour and he’s comfortable behind the wheel, fighting off sleep with a cigarette and a thermos of coffee. He works nights because the dreams are less intense when he sleeps during the day. And because it feels easier to ignore the world when he’s sleeping while everyone else is awake. Everything seems less real at night, a bit like a dream. You can wake up from dreams, and Louis holds onto every bit of hope, however small.

The roadside gas station stands out amidst the surrounding darkness. The parking space for employees is at the back behind the convenience store building, outside the square of harsh, cold light. Louis lets the last notes of Brahm’s violin sonata play out before turning off the ignition. He flicks on the overhead light to peer into the sun visor mirror, rubbing sleep from his eyes and tucking his fringe under his beanie through a yawn.

He jumps at the knock on the car window, cracking his neck as he whips his head around. Perrie grins at him, banging her knuckles against the glass again.

“Love your beauty routine, darling.”

Louis rolls his eyes as he steps out of the car and locks it behind him. “Thanks, love. I try.”

Perrie eyes him critically while blowing on her hands against the cold. She’s wearing fingerless gloves and sheer tights with a short skirt and an oversized leather jacket. Louis zips up his parka and sticks his hands in his pockets with a shiver.

“You need some concealer for the circles under your eyes. Or a good night’s rest—that should do it too,” she says without malice.

“Got anything for that?” Louis asks.

Perrie pouts. “No, sorry. Get laid, maybe?”

Louis lets out a single, humorless laugh. “I’m fine, thanks.”

Louis found it difficult to get close to people, and hooking up with strangers was a risk. He’d figured out after a handful of encounters that sex made him sensitive to the point of pain to his surroundings and the person he was with. After an unpleasant night with a man tainted with a history of domestic abuse toward his partners that Louis had picked up on, and the time he’d ended up in hysterics in a motel room, overcome with a revulsion and fear he couldn’t explain to his very confused date—he’d discovered later that the room had been the scene of a gruesome rape and murder years back—he’d decided sex wasn’t worth the trouble. It had made him angry then, but his libido is pretty much nonexistent at this point and he makes do on his own just fine.

Perrie bites her lip uncertainly. “We’re going out to the club tomorrow—Stan and Jade and the others—if you want to come with?”

She’s been working at the gas station for four months and still asks every Friday even though Louis hasn’t said yes once.

“I think I’ll just use the time to catch up on some sleep. But thanks, Pez.”

Louis can tell she’s trying to keep the concern in her voice and face to a minimum; even though their interaction is limited to ten minute conversations during the change of shift, Perrie’s very easy to read.

"Right. Well. Call me if you change your mind?”

Louis nods and forces a smile onto his face. “Will do.”

 

He takes his “lunch” break at 2:00 AM. Louis eats half a chocolate and granola bar before forgetting about it and locking it in the cash register. Later he sips on a juice box, sucking on the straw until it makes an obnoxious noise, with his feet up on the counter and his eyes glued to the soccer match on his phone.

At 3:09 AM the glass doors of the convenience store slide open and a young woman wanders inside, wearing a turquoise party dress under an unbuttoned quilted coat. Her outfit makes Louis feel under-dressed in his worn black skinny jeans and too-big light grey sweatshirt under his work vest.

“Ice?” she calls over to him.

Louis tosses the key to the icebox over to her. “Catch.”

She pumps her fists in the air and lets out a triumphant yell when she manages to catch it in the air. Louis gives her a thumbs-up and a weak smile when she shoots him a drunken grin before stumbling back outside, returning a moment later with three bags of ice cradled in her arms.

“We’re having a party,” she explains as Louis hands her a large plastic bag for the ice.

Louis nods. “Great. You’re not driving, are you?”

Her hair flicks from side to side as she shakes her head. “Nah. My friend’s driving. Is it weird we both left the party even though we’re hosting? It’s a bit weird, isn’t it? But she won’t trust anyone else with her car. Which is stupid, because, like, we drove up from Florida two weeks ago and I keep telling her the car’s going break down any day now—”

As if on cue another woman comes into the store. Her coat is buttoned up to her chin, but her dress is so short it looks like she’s not wearing anything but the coat.

She comes over to them with a put-upon sigh. “Lauren. We’re supposed to be hurrying back.”

Lauren slings an arm around her neck, half hanging off her friend. “Barb just got engaged!” she trills.

Barbara rolls her eyes and hands Louis a few bank notes. “Sorry about her.”

Louis gives a small laugh through his nose. “I have to deal with a lot worse. Congratulations—”

Their fingers brush and Louis goes stiff. _Damp concrete fading to black because of the height and a blur of orange lights rushing past. The muted noise of traffic all around and the indistinct sound of a pop song on the radio._

“Congratulations on the engagement.” His voice sounds monotone even to his ears and his mouth feels like it’s full of cotton.

Barbara raises her eyebrows a little. “Thanks,” she says slowly. After a moment she drums her fingers on the counter. “Um. Can I get the change, please? Sorry, but we left a bunch of drunk people at the apartment…”

Louis realizes he’s still holding the banknotes in his hand. Shaking his head to clear it, he turns to the cash register and picks out a few coins. “Sorry. Long night.”

“Mhm.”

Barbara turns to leave without another word, while Lauren waggles her fingers at Louis, looking back over her shoulder with a bright smile. “Bye!”

Louis raises a hand in farewell but lets it drop quickly. He feels sick. He’s never quite free of the dreams, but he hasn’t had that happen in months and months. The doctors called it dissociative episodes and left it at that. But that didn’t explain how he’d known about Niall’s brother, or Stan’s accident, or old Mr. Winton’s heart attack. It didn’t explain how when he was fifteen he’d left school and ridden his bike five miles and found his missing dog, beaten and hanged by his leash from a tree. The kids who did it had never been punished because Louis had never told anyone; he couldn’t even explain how he’d got there and he knew no one would believe him or care anyhow.

 

He leaves work at 6:00 AM on the dot since Luke always arrives a few minutes early. He pulls the hood of his parka up and hunches his shoulders as he walks over to his car, struggling against the buffeting wind—his phone beeps right as he closes the door, the sound loud in the relative silence inside the car.

**6:03 AM Meet you behind parker st. Need coffee !!**

Niall is Louis’ best friend—if anyone has a claim to the title it’s him—and Niall prides himself on it. Louis doesn’t understand why, though. Niall has more friends than he can count and gets along with just about everyone he meets. He doesn’t get why Niall puts in the effort with him, when Louis turns down offers to meet up more often than not and is mediocre company at best.

Still, he’s the only person Louis has ever considered telling about him in over ten years.

Louis stops by a drive through and heads over to Parker Street where Niall has the van parked. Niall works as a courier, even though he’s overqualified for his job. Louis doesn’t know where he finds the time and energy to be as social as he is while working full-time and studying online, from courses in political sciences to music engineering to art history.

Louis knocks on the door of the van on the passenger side, jolting Niall awake where he was dozing in the driver’s seat. Niall leans over the console to unlock the door and take the drinks from Louis so he can climb inside. It’s still warm inside and smells like hamburgers and strawberry air freshener.

“You look like shit.”

Louis toes off his shoes and folds his legs underneath him before holding his hand out for Niall to hand him his chocolate. “Thanks, mate. Feeling the... love.” He trails off when he notices the paper cup over the dashboard. Narrowing his eyes he reaches for it and runs the tip of his pointer finger around the bottom of the cup. It’s still wet.

He holds up his finger to Niall’s face. “You already had coffee, you liar!”

Niall shrugs, unapologetic. “You see what I’ve got to do to see you. Get stupidly expensive coffee just to lure you in here.”

Louis huffs out a small laugh. “I paid for the coffee. And we see each other at least once a month when you pick up my prescription for me.” He grins at Niall. “You’re my drug dealer.”

Olli is his actual drug dealer when he wants to score some weed, but Louis knows what will make Niall laugh. Or he usually does. Niall doesn’t laugh this time.

“I’m not just your drug dealer, though,” he argues, looking genuinely offended.

“No. You’re my favorite stalker on Instagram.” Louis tries again, placing the empty paper cup on Niall’s head like a party hat for good measure.

Niall bursts into laughter and fixes the paper cup on his head when it threatens to fall twice before giving up. “You haven’t posted anything in ages. I miss your stupid nerdy posts.”

Louis thinks about feigning offense, but shrugs instead, hit by a sudden wave of tiredness. “It was too much trouble.”

He’s not sure when in the last few months everything became too much trouble again; even keeping the apartment clean and feeding himself and waking up to do it over and over again.

“Hey.” Niall puts a hand on Louis’ knee and gives it a squeeze. “You can talk to me. You know that right? You seem...”

Louis stares down at Niall’s hand on his knee. Niall is a demonstrative person, and Louis knows that he tones down his displays of affection because he knows Louis is uncomfortable with people touching him. Right now he kinds of wants to lean over and give Niall a hug, though. But he’s out of practice and every little touch now makes his heart race. “I’m just tired,” he replies at last with a sigh.

Niall pats his knee. “You need to get out more. Meet people. It can’t be good to be in your head all day. I’m meeting some friends for dinner and drinks tonight—you’re coming.”

Louis’ fingertips feel cold all over again even though the chocolate is still lukewarm. “I... I don’t think...”

“Louis, please.”

He and Niall have known each other for almost three years now, and Niall’s never stopped inviting him to go out with him and his friends. He’s asked again and again, and he’s even demanded it (on his birthday and New Years)—with varying degrees of success— but he’s never begged before.

An alarm goes off on Niall’s phone, signalling he has to go back to work, but he doesn’t take his eyes off Louis. “Please?”

Louis bites his lip and nods. “OK. I’ll go.”

Niall lets out a loud, startling whoop. “Yes! Brilliant!” He cackles and leans over to give Louis a squeeze, almost spilling their drinks all over them.

Louis pulls back quickly but smiles at him. “All right. Settle down, Niall. You’re embarrassing yourself.”

Niall laughs some more.

Louis is terrified but he can’t regret it after seeing Niall’s reaction. He hasn’t been out in ages. Maybe it will be different this time.

*

It takes him a while to find something decent to wear for a night out in the mess of his closet. He visits the laundromat and does a fortnight’s worth of dishes, and can’t bring himself to sleep even though by the time 6:00 PM rolls around he’ll have been awake for far too long to be healthy.

Louis is so nervous he’s trembling as he approaches the table at the restaurant. It’s a burger joint with scratched red leather seats and an overwhelming smell of grease. The music from the vintage jukebox is too loud for Louis’ taste, but the portions seem generous and the waiters friendly, and Louis can see why Niall likes the place.

“Louis! I was starting to think you’d stood me up!” Niall calls when he catches sight of him, struggling to stand from where he’s squeezed in between two of his friends.

Louis puts a hand to his chest. “ _You?_ I would _never_ ,” he says in mock affront.

Niall laughs. “Sit right down. We were just about to order,” he says, motioning for Louis to find a seat and sitting back down himself, obviously having given up on the idea of getting to Louis for a hug in his position.

There are eight people, six squeezed into the booth and the others in chairs around an added table. Louis grabs a chair and drags it over to where someone has moved to make space for him.

“Thanks—” Louis breaks off when he sees who it is that’s sitting beside him.

“Hey.” Liam gives him an awkward nod.

Louis responds with a grunt.

Liam is a police officer; when he has a night shift he’ll stop by the gas station to fill the tank and glare at Louis suspiciously while Louis rings up his blue Gatorade.  
They first met a week after Louis had moved to town, before he met Niall or even got his job. Liam had pulled Louis over and put him through every sobriety test, skeptical even after Louis had passed them all. It had pissed Louis off and there had been a bit of a shouting match until an increasingly agitated Liam had slapped a pair of handcuffs on him and arrested him for disorderly conduct. Louis had spent a few hours in lockup complaining about how ‘contempt of cop’ wasn’t an actual offense until they let him go. Their relationship since then had been strained.

Louis keeps to himself while he works on his burger and beer. When he orders a second beer he catches Liam staring at him out of the corner of his eye.

“What?” Louis demands, irritable.

“Nothing.” Liam takes a gulp of his own beer, adding a very audible ‘prick’ under his breath.

Louis wonders what would happen if he called him out on it. He has half a mind to try to goad Mr. Upright into a fight but is distracted by one of Niall’s friends, Aiden, stealing one of his french fries with a cheeky grin. “Better eat up—they’re getting cold.”

Louis summons a smile. “A real delicacy, cold french fries.”

Aiden knocks their shoulders together as he laughs. “A real treat.”

Louis’ nose itches with the smell of cheap detergent and strong deodorant coming from Aiden. His food feels heavy in his stomach all of a sudden like he’s just received terrible news.

“You OK?” Aiden asks, his smile fading as he peers at Louis in confusion.

Louis nods though his hands feel clammy. “I’m fine.”

Aiden puts a heavy hand on Louis’ shoulder. “You need another drink. Let me buy you a beer, yeah?”

Louis has to fight very hard not to flinch away from him when another wave of distress washes over him. “I couldn’t. Thanks. I’m sorry.”

He can feel Liam watching him, but he’s focused on the slight frown on Aiden’s face. “OK, dude. I was just trying to be nice,” he mutters, putting his hands up and leaning away from Louis.

Louis could kick himself. “I know. I’m sorry. But you just lost your job and I couldn’t—”

“What?” Aiden stiffens. “How do you know that?”

Louis opens and closes his mouth several times. “You mentioned it before—” he hazards, although he hadn’t been paying much attention to the conversation going on around him.

“No he didn’t,” Liam butts in, echoing Aiden’s bewildered ‘No I didn’t’. Everyone is staring now and Louis’ dinner is inching up his throat.

“I know someone at your job...” he lies, twisting his fingers in the hem of his jumper. He doesn’t even know where Aiden works.

“Who?”

“Don’t kill the messenger, Aiden. Leave Louis alone and explain why the hell didn’t you tell us!” Niall cuts in, diverting the attention to himself. People get distracted and Louis can breathe again.

“You didn’t finish your dinner,” Liam points out after a few minutes, the only one who is still focused on Louis.

Louis shoots him a dirty look. “No I didn’t, _dad_. So what?” he snaps.

After a minute, he throws enough money to cover his bill on the table and flees, his coat gathered to his chest and his head down.

It’s freezing outside, and Louis can use the biting wind as an excuse for how his eyes water as he steps outside. He crosses the parking lot, hands tucked under his armpits until he reaches the car.

Niall catches up with him while he’s still struggling to fit the key into the lock. “Lou! Don’t go. C’mon, it’s not even nine.”

Louis keeps his head down. “I’m knackered, mate. Sorry.”

Niall heaves a deep sigh, then frowns, peering at the car in the dim light of the street lamp. “Did you buy another car?”

“Hm?”

“I thought you had that old Volvo?”

Louis blinks and looks down at the car he’s trying to open. It’s a dark blue minivan with a sun roof and a baby carrier in the back seat. It’s not even a Volvo. Louis stumbles back, away from the car, heart pounding in his chest.

He raises wide eyes to Niall who’s looking at Louis with concern. “Lou—”

Louis is aware his attempt at a grin is a failure. “I’m really tired.”

“Are you sure you should be driving then? Let me call you a cab...” Niall takes a slow step forward to rest his hand on Louis’ elbow.

Louis shakes him off, takes another step back. “I’m fine. It’s... dark. I probably need to change my glasses. Or wear them—that would be a start.”

Niall chuckles weakly. They both know he’d have to be certifiably blind to confuse his car with this one.

“Text me when you get home?” Niall asks.

He’s begging again.

Louis nods, walking backwards toward his car. “I will. Thanks for the invite. I’ll see you around, Niall. Have fun tonight,” he rambles.

Niall waits until Louis in the car and backing out of his parking space before heading back inside.

*

Louis spends Sunday and Monday sequestered at home avoiding sleep, keeping his phone off so that he doesn’t have to answer Niall’s texts.  
He wakes up for his shift on Tuesday groggy and slower than usual. He knows he’s overdone it with the sleeping pills, but he'd been desperate to avoid dreaming while still aware that he _had_ to get some proper sleep or risk getting into an accident. He hasn’t had a proper dream in three weeks and he doesn’t want the break to be over. Except even with all the pills he’s still woken up the last three days with the feeling of being trapped and afraid, although he can’t remember anything more concrete.

His head is swimming as he fishes a worn journal out of the bottom of a drawer, from underneath a jumper he never wears and a bunch of mismatched socks. He hasn’t written in the journal in a while and he hates that he has to pull it out now. There isn’t much to write down, though. Nothing but _I can’t get away. I’m scared. I’m so scared. Please help. Somebody help. I don’t want to die. I want to go home._

His handwriting is shaky and his eyes sting as he writes it down and then the dates: January 13, 14, 15.  
  
Perrie doesn’t greet him at parking lot as usual. Instead it’s Julian, their supervisor, who’s waiting for him in the back room where they each have a locker.

“Tomlinson, you know I’ve never said anything, and I know it’s none of my business, and I don’t care as long as you do your job... but you look rough.”

“So why are you saying something now?” Louis asks as he pulls on his uniform vest over a striped black and white jumper.

“There’s a couple of policemen to talk to you,” Julian explains. “So look alive, will you?”

“What? Police? Why?”

Julian doesn’t answer but waves him out the door, flapping his arms at him impatiently.

Louis goes out to the store and freezes when he recognizes one of the policemen standing by the till. Liam turns around and Louis squares his shoulders as he walks over to him.

“G’evening, Mr. Tomlinson.” Liam’s senior officer comes out from behind the counter to shake his hand. Louis forces himself to take it. His grip is firm, hand rough, but Louis gets nothing else. “I’m Lt. O’Brien and this is my partner, Officer Payne. We’d like to ask you some questions, if that’s all right.”

Louis nods, uncomfortable. “What’s this about?”

“ _We’ll_ be asking the questions,” Liam says quickly.

Louis raises an eyebrow, a silent but very obvious ‘fuck you’ passing between them. There’s a shuffling noise from behind one of the shelves and Louis becomes aware that there’s someone else in the store, rummaging around out of sight.

“There’s another girl gone missing,” Lt. O’Brien explains.

“Another?” Louis asks, dumbfounded.

“Don’t watch the news much, do you?” Liam cuts in.

Louis’ jaw tightens at the condescension in his tone. “No,” he says shortly.

“Maybe you should, kid. Every once in a while, yeah?” Lt. O’Brien says without heat. He pulls out a photo out of a folder and holds it out to Louis. “She look familiar?”

Louis inhales sharply when he turns the picture right side up and sees who it is in the picture. It’s Barbara. Images of rushing squares of dark and light inundate his mind and pain stabs the back of his skull.

“You know her?” Liam presses.

Louis blinks the light from his eyes. “I—She was here last week, yeah. With a friend. They bought ice.”

“You talked to her? Had a bit of a chat?”

Louis tries to give the picture back because his hands are shaking and it’s impossible not to notice when he’s holding something. Liam crosses his arms over his chest and won’t take it.

“None at all?” Lt. O’Brien insists. “Two pretty girls and you all on your own here?”

In spite of everything Louis can’t help the twitch of his lips at that misguided comment. “Not really. All she said was they were throwing a party at their place.”

Lt. O’Brien gives a sharp nod. “Right-o.” He takes the photograph from Louis and slides it back into the folder. “Well, thanks for your time.”

Louis nods and steps back, hesitating whether to go behind the counter or check on the customer who’s still hidden away behind the shelves.

“You saw how he reacted when he saw the picture...” Louis overhears Liam’s furious whisper as he and his partner head out.

“It’s a shock to hear someone you know, even if it was just in passing, is missing, Liam. It doesn’t mean anything.”

“He’s not—” Liam stops Lt. O’Brien just outside the glass sliding doors, so that they can’t close and Louis can hear their conversation from where he’s standing. “There’s something about him. I don’t trust him.”

“Son.” Lt. O’Brien puts a hand on Liam’s shoulder. “We’ve dealt with people like him before. They’re jittery and spaced out ‘cause they need their fix, and they’re nervous ‘cause drugs are illegal and they’re talking to the police—that doesn’t mean they’re serial killers.”

Louis doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry as he watches Liam make a face but concede and the two policemen walk off toward their car.

“Are they gone?” Julian calls over from the staff room.

“Yeah,” Louis replies absently, watching the police car drive off.

“Get to work then! I’m off. I should have been home hours ago and no one is paying me for this overtime...” Julian mutters to himself as he pulls on his jacket. “And don’t leave food in the cash register again, will you? Second time in three months that Pauline finds something half eaten inside...”

Louis gives him a mock salute, which makes Julian roll his eyes, but he returns the salute half-heartedly before he leaves, still grumbling under his breath.

The sound of boxes tumbling to the floor diverts Louis’ attention to the customer who’s been loitering far too long to be normal.

Louis tiptoes around the other side of the shelving to catch him unawares. He peers around the shelf into the aisle and catches the stranger putting the boxes back in place, muttering a litany of curse words. The man is tall and lean, wearing an elegant long dark coat, suit pants, and dress shoes. His hair is short but curling at the nape and the sharp angle of his jaw makes Louis bite his lip.

“Can I help you with anything?” Louis asks after clearing his throat.

The man whirls around with a winning smile and wide eyes, still holding a box of tissues in his hands and a shopping basket hanging off one wrist. He has very pink, full lips and stunning green eyes. Louis has never been more conscious of the pallor of his skin and the circles under his eyes than he is at that moment. He reaches up to adjust his fringe automatically, deeply regretting foregoing a shower that evening.

“I don’t know. I’m looking for some products for curly hair? I forgot to pack my usual shampoo and conditioner, and the hotel I’m staying at doesn’t offer much of a selection.”

Louis is extremely out of practice when it comes to flirting. But with the unexpected and rare rush of attraction comes an almost instinctual response. He cocks out his hip and straightens his back to emphasize his body—even though he’s lost weight in the last year and he’s not even sure he has much of anything to show off at this point.

“I don’t think we have much of a selection either. This isn’t exactly Bath and Body works,” he teases with a bit of a smile. “So what were you really doing back here?”

The man chuckles. His voice is quite deep, Louis can’t help but notice. “I was waiting to talk to you, actually.”

That gives Louis pause. “Oh?”

“And I was eavesdropping, if we’re going for full disclosure.”

“Thanks for your honesty,” Louis says after a beat, the flirtiness evaporating from his stance and tone.

“The girl who’s gone missing, you talked to her friend too, didn’t you? Lauren Reynolds?”

“Um. Yeah.”

“She didn’t say anything to you? Maybe something about having another stop planned before heading back to the party at the apartment?”

Louis examines the man thoughtfully, setting his attraction aside. “She was kind of drunk. And I’m sure the police have already spoken to her.”

“She’s dead.”

Louis gasps. “What?”

The man nods, closing his eyes wearily. “They never made it back to the party. We found Lauren’s body off the side of the road in the car, but no sign of Barbara.”

“We?” Louis asks, focusing on that detail instead of on the horror of what he’s just heard.

The man reaches inside his suit jacket and pulls out a badge. He steps closer to Louis and flips it open so that Louis can read it: _FBI. Special Agent Harry E. Styles_.

Louis takes an automatic step back.

“You might have been the last person to see her alive.”

Louis grabs the shopping basket from Harry. “Let me ring this up for you.”

Harry follows him to the cash register, his heels clicking on the black and white tiled linoleum.

“Their friends at the party said they left to buy ice.”

Louis nods as he takes out of the basket two packets of gummy bears and a nail file. “That’ll be 6.95,” he says numbly. “They bought three bags of ice.”

“The security footage doesn’t show anyone else in the store at the time, but do you remember anything suspicious from that night? Anything different?”

Louis is careful not to touch Harry as he takes the money from him. “No. I—Nothing.”

“They were from Florida, originally. Both of their families still live there. Did either of them mention wanting to visit?”

Louis makes a face. “We talked for two minutes, it’s not like we had a heart to heart—” He bites the nail of his thumb as he remembers Lauren had mentioned Florida. “But she... she actually did mention they had just been to visit? Recently? Said it was a miracle the car hadn’t broken down yet.”

Harry makes a thoughtful noise in the back of his throat as he takes his stuff. “Thank you. You’ve been very helpful.”

“Right.”

Louis stares as Harry reaches for his wallet again, flipping it open and rifling through to pull out a business card. Louis’ heart does a little flip when Harry slides it toward him on the counter. His heart drops when he picks it up: it’s a Narcotics Anonymous card. He blinks down at it before raising his eyes to Harry, who has a small furrow between his eyebrows and a careful, gentle expression in his eyes.

“If you ask for Jeff, I know him personally—”

“Fuck you,” Louis spits. And he doesn’t know if it’s illegal to say that to an FBI agent, but he’s feeling rejected and humiliated, and he’s so on edge his skin is crawling. He throws the card at Harry’s chest; Harry fumbles to catch it but it falls to the floor. “You don’t know anything about me. Get the fuck out, you entitled shit.”

Harry’s jaw tightens and he stares Louis down for a moment before giving him a curt nod and striding out of the store.

Louis glares at the card on the floor for a minute, then goes around the counter to pick it up. He crumples it into a ball and throws it in the bin angrily.

*

_It’s dark. Caught in between street lights in the middle of the night. It’s dark and his legs are cold from his toes up to his knees with the ice bags between his feet on the floor. He can hear voices outside the car. Her head is swimming a little, and she rests it against the window. The glass is cold against her cheek. It’s even cooler when the door on the driver’s side is opened and a blast of wind comes rushing in._

_“Let’s go, Laurie. The man says he’ll take us back to town,” Barbara says, gathering her keys and purse from the seat._

_“Didn’t your mamma teach you never to get in cars with strangers?” he slurs, half-asleep. “Just call George and tell him to pick us up.”_

_“There’s no reception here and it’s damn cold.” Barbara reaches for his hand, giving it a pull. “C’mon. Your hands are like ice already.”_

_She moves sluggishly. “Shall we take the ice?”_

_Barbara laughs. “Sure, might as well. Button up your jacket, will you? You’ll catch your death of a cold at this rate.”_

*

Louis wakes up at 12:08 PM after four hours of sleep feeling drunk even though he didn’t drink the night before, and so drowsy he trips over his shoes on the way to the bathroom and nearly brains himself with the door handle.

Normally he’d hole himself up in his apartment on a day off, but there’s nothing in the fridge and the only reason he didn’t drink the night before was because he didn’t have any alcohol. So he heads to the supermarket after pulling on a beanie and sweatpants. It’s a short walk to the store, although it feels longer when he’s lugging back the groceries.

A couple of blocks down as he’s crossing the street he notices a dark SUV like the ones the Feds use in the films parked in front of a garage. It’s a cheap place; Louis has taken his car there before to get it checked out. He considers crossing the street back again to avoid going past the garage where he can just make out two tall, suited figures in long coats walking out. But he’s not going to hide from Agent-fucking-Styles, which sounds like a porn name and not an respectable name for someone in the FBI.

“Call Malik, will you? Tell him to run a back-up check on the mechanic, but...”

“But it’s not him.”

Louis recognizes the second voice, and in spite of his resolution, he quickens his pace as he passes in front of the garage. This only calls attention to him, and he glances up just in time to meet Harry’s eyes.

Harry stares at him in surprise before he schools his face into what Louis thinks might be meant to be an intimidating scowl. He straightens his back and flips his coat open with a hand to his gun holster on his hip. Louis’ lip curls in disgust at the display and he throws up both middle fingers as he pushes on down the street.

“What _have_ you been up to, Harold?”

Louis hears the other agent ask in a suggestive tone before the slam of a car door cuts off his voice. The SUV overtakes and passes him a few seconds later; Louis can’t see anything through the tinted windows but he glares at it for good measure.

 

He tries to be as quick as possible at the supermarket. Louis likes to eat, but his appetite is at an all time low and he’s a shit cook, so he piles up on cereal, peanut butter and celery, and crackers, which are perfect for when he’s nauseous. With a couple of boxes of frozen pizza, the heaviest thing he has to carry back is the milk.

Rolling his shopping cart down the produce aisle his attention is caught by the man in front of him, dragging a shopping basket behind him with a distinct air of helplessness about him. Louis feels the heaviness in his chest and tears prickle at the corner of his eyes without apparent reason. When he curses under his breath the man turns around.

“Sorry, am I in the way?” he asks.

Louis winces. “No. No. I stubbed my toe.”

The man’s expression is lost and tragic. “I don’t know if I should buy these,” he says abruptly, gesturing at the tomatoes and bell peppers in his shopping basket.

“Will they go bad before she’s back? I don’t… I don’t know… what I’m supposed to do while she’s out there… missing.”

And Louis knows who he is even though he’s never seen him before. He ducks his head to avoid the man’s eyes and hurries past him with a muttered apology. He can’t shake him, though. The man follows him down the aisle.

“Barbara loves oranges too,” he sighs.

Louis shudders, staring at the oranges that have found their way into his shopping cart alongside his celery without him being aware of it. He hates when that happens; hates losing himself like that.

He finally manages to get rid of Barbara’s fiancé at the cash register, gathering up his bags as fast as he can and dashing out of the store.

Back home, he takes the time to put the oranges in a bowl and clears out some space on the kitchen table for them. Their smell saturates the kitchen and spreads to the rest of the apartment.

For a change, Louis turns on the news instead of the gaming console or Netflix and curls up on the couch with a bowl of cereal.

‘The disappearance of Barbara Nelson appears to be connected to those of Patricia Ferrero, Rita Smith, and Helen Milton, who were abducted and later found dead with similar patterns of abuse last November.’

Louis hasn’t seen the women whose pictures are shown on screen, but there’s a tug of recognition in his chest, especially with the first one. A short interview with Barbara’s fiancé follows, in which he begs, with tears in his eyes, for Barbara to be returned safe. Louis turns off the TV, glances down at his cereal and sees it’s gone soggy. He puts the bowl down on the coffee table, the spoon spattering the edge of the couch with milk as it falls to the floor.

Skin covered in goosebumps he trudges over to his room and sits on the edge of the bed with his journal on his lap. After a minute he opens it to skim through the pages. Some entries are just a short paragraph of sensations and partial images like Polaroids. He hadn’t had a long, detailed dream since July when he’d dreamt he was drowning. He’d woken up in a full blown panic attack, soaked through in sweat. Since then there’s little until October.

**October 22nd**

I trips up the stairs, unable to see the steps with the box in my arms. It’s heavy and my fingers keep slipping over the tape it has wrapped around to keep it from falling apart.

“Let me help you with that?”

The box is taken out of my hands and I follow a man up the stairs, smiling, staring at his ass in his worn blue jeans.

“Well! That was impressive. Thank you.” I put a hand to my hip and flick long, blonde hair out of my face, eyeing the man’s muscled body. I feel heat rush down my chest between my breasts. “Work out a lot, do you?”

I look at the man’s strong hands and broad chest as he answers with a chuckle. “I don’t have much time to work out. But I work in construction and there’s a lot of heavy lifting. It’s tough, but it can come in handy.”

I smile, twirling a lock of hair around my finger. “I dare say it does. What keeps you so busy anyway?”

**October 26th**

It’s dark. In a moving car with synthetic fur tickling my nose. Indistinct, distant music. Fear. Confusion. A pounding in my head.

**October 30th**

Pain. Screaming. A man shouting: ‘You liar! You damn liar! Did you think I wouldn’t find out? You thought it was funny to keep wasting my time? You could never be what I’m looking for.’ Pain. Blood spattering on concrete.

**November 9th**

There’s a red and blue sippy cup rolling backwards and forwards with the motion of the car, sliding in and out of the thin beams of light breaking the darkness. My foot and head throb in unison. I can hear someone whistling.

**November 13th**

‘You’re not doing it right!’

A slap to the face that makes my cheek sting. I looks down at my hands, clasped in my lap. I’m wearing a blue dress with a pattern of small flowers with food stains all down the front. There are bruises around my wrists.

A hand fists in my hair and shoves me forward. ‘Keep trying.’ He slams a red plastic spoon in front of me. ‘Sing the song. He likes it.’  
   
November 20th is a scribble and he can’t understand his handwriting. He can’t remember it either, which is rare. He thinks it’s probably for the best.

Louis sits with the journal clutched in his lap for a long time, biting his lip raw. At some point he lets himself fall backward, closing his eyes. He falls asleep in seconds.

***

A shrill noise pierced his ears. Hands gripped his upper arms, fingers digging into the flesh as he was shaken hard enough to make his teeth clack. The noise was cut off as blood filled his mouth and a sharp, stinging pain shot from the tip of his tongue back to the root and down his throat.

‘Oh my God.’ A female voice repeated over and over again, half-sobbing. She was the one holding Louis up. His whole body was limp, on his knees on the bed but unable to support his weight.

‘What is the matter with you?’

The man gripped Louis’ chin forcing him to look up into his red, furious face.

‘Mom,’ Louis whimpered.

‘Why were you screaming? Boo Bear, what happened? What’s wrong?’ His mum peered into his face, her own streaked with tears and full of fear and concern.

‘I had a bad dream,’ Louis whispered, trembling as he sat back on his knees when his mother let go of him.

‘He’s eight years old! He’s too old for this. This is the third time this month. I need to sleep! I wake up at six—I can’t—Now that Lottie’s sleeping the night through you’re going to start? Fuck!’

The man shoved a stack of children’s books off the chest of drawers to the floor.

Louis’ mum got to her feet. ‘Stop it! You’re scaring him and you’ll wake Lottie.’

‘I’ll wake Lottie!? It’s a miracle she’s still asleep with this racket—’

Louis started crying.

***

Louis wakes up at 8:47 PM his body used to its schedule. His throat is sore but can’t remember dreaming anything and he’s hungry, which he guesses is a good sign. He munches on celery and peanut butter on the couch while watching _The Princess Bride_ even though it had already started. It’s late when the film ends but he sits at the piano anyway. He’ll have Mrs. Dumphy banging on his door to complain tomorrow morning, but he doesn’t care. He needs this. He plays until midnight and is running scales in a bit of a stupor when his phone rings.

**12:04 AM you’ve disappeared on me again. I feel like I need a medium to communicate with you, you go ghost so often**

A strangled laugh escapes Louis at the message.

**12:07 AM Oh shit. You’re not working today, are you? Hope I didn’t wake ya. Call me, you weirdo**

Louis hunches over on the piano bench, arms around his middle, between crying and laughing. When he’s calmed down he calls Niall.

“What are you doing awake at this hour? Don’t you have to be up at 5:30?”

Niall laughs. “I get days off too.”

“And you’re not at the pub?”

“It’s Wednesday. People work tomorrow.”

Louis raises an eyebrow even though Niall can’t see him. He doesn’t have to say anything before Niall is admitting that he’d just got home.

Louis chuckles. “Do you… you want to come over?” he asks. He’s not sure why. Except he really doesn’t want to be alone.

His answer is shocked silence. Louis would make fun of him for the overreaction, but in three years Niall’s been over twice, and both times he’d invited himself over.

“Yeah, for sure,” Niall says finally.

“If you want anything to eat you should probably bring it.”

Niall shows up at 1:03 AM with two buckets of ice cream, a bottle of rum and a bottle of soda, and a giant bag of crisps.

“I feel like I’m enabling you, but I’ll reckon you’ll do it anyway, right?” he says as he pulls the rum out of the bag.

“Probably,” Louis agrees, reaching for the bottle.

They settle on the couch with a rerun of _Dual Survival_ on the television. Niall doesn’t need to be told to get comfortable, propping his socked feet up on the coffee.

“Proper sleepover, Nialler. I’m impressed.”

Niall grins at him. “Gotta make the most of it. Who knows when it’ll happen again?”

Louis pokes the spoon into his ice cream to scoop out a large chocolate chip, avoiding Niall’s gaze. “It’s—I don’t invite anyone over. Ever.”

“Ever?” Niall asks. His eyebrow raise when Louis glances up is suggestive.

Louis gives a bit of a shrug. “Not really.”

Niall digs into his ice cream. “But do you want to?” He looks at Louis with a serious, earnest expression on his face. “It’s all right if you don’t. If you’re asexual or … whatever.”

Louis has to smile. “I don’t think I am, Niall, but thanks. I just haven’t fancied anyone for a while.”

Unbidden, his mind goes straight to Agent Harry E. Styles with his long, lean legs and his jawline and the curls around his ears and his pink lips.

“But even if you did, you still wouldn’t invite them over.” Niall doesn’t phrase it as a question. He’s looking at Louis with a careful, intent expression on his face.

Louis shrugs again. “Probably not,” he admits.

Niall’s brow creases. “But _why_?”

“It’s complicated.”

Niall nudges Louis’ foot with his own. “Try me?”

Louis bites his lip. He’d been thinking about it and here was the perfect opening before him. But he ends up shaking his head with a strained smile. “Just feel special. You’re the first man to spend the night in my apartment,” he says jokingly.

Niall’s smile is small but soft. “I do, mate.”

Niall falls asleep on the couch around three, snoring a little with his head thrown back and his mouth open, the empty carton of ice cream cradled in the crook of his elbow. Louis leaves everything as it is and goes to bed.

*

He dreams of Harry washing his hair, building up a foam with his long fingers massaging his scalp, suds sliding down his neck and broad, naked back. Louis wakes up hard, which is something that hadn’t happened in so long he’s almost taken aback. He takes care of it in the shower where the images of Harry are stronger and he doesn’t have to clean up after.

Louis throws a blanket over Niall, who’s stretched out on the couch drooling onto the throw pillow, before grabbing his keys and pulling on his parka over a faded red jumper to leave the apartment. It’s 7:12 AM and he’s itching in his skin, eager to get going even though he has nowhere to be. He gets in the car and drives without direction, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel, body tense, latent arousal pooling in his lower belly.

He doesn’t know where he is when he stops the car almost an hour later at the end of a street in a residential area. Houses made of faded white wooden boards, separated from each other by a narrow passage that also served to connect the street in front and behind the houses.Louis is focused on the last house of the block: chain link fence delimiting a modest backyard, hoary with frost and littered with children’s toys.

Louis gets out of the car, forgetting his parka, and walks right up to the fence, hooking his fingers in the spaces between the wires even though he’s still holding his keys in one hand. There’s a dog barking in one of the houses close by and it’s making Louis’ head hurt.

“Oi! What are you doing over there!?”

Louis is startled and he grimaces when he recognizes Liam, jogging toward him around the side of the house, one hand at his belt gripping his gun holster and the other outstretched with the palm up in a comical ‘freeze’ motion.

Louis disentangles himself from the fence, dropping his keys and getting a small cut on his palm from a sharp bit of wire as he stumbles back onto the street. The sidewalk is smoothed over with recent cement, half a boot print breaking up the uniform surface.

“Stop! Don’t move!”

Harry and the other detective appear round the side of the house, obviously drawn by Liam’s shouting.

Louis swears and shrugs off Liam when he tries to grip his upper arm. “Don’t touch me.”

“What’s going on here?”

Liam keeps a hand hovering over Louis’ upper arm, standing so close Louis is tempted to take a step back and stomp on his toes. “I caught him snooping around, Agent Grimshaw.”

Special Agent Grimshaw raises his eyebrows while giving Louis a once over. “Care to explain, sir?”

“I was checking out the house. I’m... house hunting,” Louis lies, very carefully not looking in Harry’s direction.

But Harry steps closer, impossible to keep out of his field of vision. “None of these houses are for sale,” he says slowly. “And this house is connected to a crime... connected to another crime... to which you are connected.”

“Bit of a tongue twister you’ve got going on there,” Louis replies, cutting him off. He’s never had much of a filter when he’s nervous. And he’s nervous—because he’s not an idiot and he knows this all looks... weird.

“I’ve seen you before. Why?” Grimshaw says, looking at Louis with his head tilted to the side and his mouth twisting. “This isn’t such a small town that we should bump into each other twice in less than twenty-four hours.”

“You must have me confused with someone. We’ve never met.”

“I said I’d seen you before, not that we’d met. But you should know I’m rather good with faces—it comes with the job, if you will. And I’m rather good with names too. Mr. Tomlinson, isn’t that right?”

The three of them, Liam, Harry, and Agent Grimshaw, crowd around Louis, towering over him. But Louis refuses to be intimated; he tilts his chin up and meets Grimshaw’s eyes.

“I’m not breaking any laws, am I?” He’s furious at the way his voice goes high pitched. “I was out for a drive, looking at the scenery. It’s not illegal.”

“It’s not. But it’s suspicious,” Harry replies. “Why would you come here, of all places?”

“I don’t—” Louis can’t tear his eyes away from Harry’s. His brow is furrowed, and the early morning light makes the green of his eyes seem even more striking. The cold’s put red on his high cheekbones and his lips are very pink, chapped from the wind. “I don’t—”

And Louis is exhausted, all of a sudden. Running on three hours of fitful sleep and a little hungover and—fuck it all. “I don’t even know where we are,” he admits, letting his breath out in a sigh. “Why are _you_ here?”

Harry’s forehead furrows further. “This is the house where Patricia Ferrero lived with her sister and nephew.”

Louis nods slowly. “Right.”

“Should I handcuff him?” Liam asks, finally closing his fingers around Louis’ arm.

“What the fuck? I told you not to touch me,” Louis snarls, pulling out of Liam’s hold and stumbling back out of reach.

Liam looks baffled. And embarrassed. Louis gets a gloating satisfaction out of seeing him embarrassed in front of the FBI agents, whom he obviously looks up to.

“Sir?” Liam asks, directing the question at Grimshaw, who’s the senior agent.

Grimshaw glances at Harry, eyebrows raised, just as his phone starts ringing.

“I’ll handle it, Nick,” Harry says quickly.

Nick nods and walks off, raising his phone to his ear. “Grimmy here. What’ve you got?”

Louis looks from Liam, to Harry, to his car, just a few feet away.

Harry motions with his chin after Nick. “I’ll take it from here, Liam. Thanks.”

Liam frowns but leaves, adjusting his uniform jacket as he goes and throwing Louis a last suspicious glare over his shoulder.

Harry walks over to the fence and bends down to pick up Louis’ keys. “These yours?” he asks, still crouched on the pavement.

Louis makes a sound of assent and crosses his arms over his chest, trying to stop himself from shivering.

Harry frowns at the pavement for a moment, making a small thoughtful noise, before straightening and going over to Louis with slow, measured steps, as though he’s afraid of spooking him.

“Want to try again?”

“Try what?” Louis asks, on edge even though Harry’s voice was gentle.

Harry shrugs. “Try explaining what you’re doing here.”

Louis purses his lips. “No, I don’t.”

Harry’s eyebrows dip. “Why are you being so difficult? You understand this is a murder investigation and you’re—”

“I’m what? A suspect?” Louis snaps, voice shrill.

“No.”

“Then I’ll be going. Unless you’re going to make up some charges and arrest me. But I’m not talking unless it’s in an interrogation room with my fucking lawyer.”

Harry tightens his jaw. “Is that how you want it to be? Because we can do that.”

Louis is livid. He has to resist the desire to knee Harry in the crotch. “Are you threatening me now?”

Harry’s eyes remain fixed on his. “No. I’m suggesting you figure out what the fuck you’re doing, because there might come a time when you need to get your answers straight, and refusing to cooperate can land you with charges of obstruction of justice at the very least.”

Louis gapes at him, angry and terrified and fucking freezing. He holds out his hand, palm up. “Give me my keys. Now.”

“I don’t know if you should be driving,” Harry dithers even as he holds out the keys, dangling from his forefinger.

Louis snatches them out of his hand, careful not to touch him. “Ask Liam how that worked out for him.”

“What?”

He ignores Harry and hurries to his car.

Louis can see Harry staring after him in the rear view mirror all the way down the end of the street.

 

When he gets back to the apartment, Niall is gone. It’s 9:56 and he’s so full of nervous energy his body is shaking. He makes a mess squeezing oranges for a cup of juice and eats some buttered toast before the texture gets unbearable and he can’t force himself to swallow any more. He can’t concentrate on anything, staring at the television more than watching the cartoons.

He goes to bed earlier than usual, counting out three of his sleeping pills and some Valium, putting Sibelius on at full volume on his iPod and pulling the covers right over his head.

*

_“Would you like some hot coffee?” He walks over across the yard in his tartan slippers with a smile, holding his coat closed with one hand, a thermos in the other._

_Hands in thick gloves waggle their fingers through the fence. “That’s very kind of you.”_

_“It’s getting cold, and you boys are doing great work. We’ve been asking to have the street fixed for weeks.”_

_“Can’t have the little ones tripping over come Christmas, can we?” The man tugs off a glove with his teeth uncovering one strong, veined hand. There are scratches scabbed over on the back of his hand and over his wrist._

*

“It’s Pauline’s birthday tomorrow. You coming?” Perrie asks him when he gets to work on Friday. 10:07 PM—he’s late.

“Who’s Pauline?”

Perrie makes a face. “She works the morning shift with Luke. Gets in at seven, I think?”

“I don’t know her, love, sorry.”

“You can be my plus one,” she sing-songs like she’s offering him a sweet deal. “And then you can meet her. Easy as that.”

Louis has flashbacks to the fiasco last time he tried to go out while Perrie pouts at him shamelessly, batting her mascara-heavy eyelashes.

“You gonna make the lady beg?”

Perrie and Louis both jump, automatically moving closer. The man must have come from the bathroom at the back. They can’t see his face between the darkness in the parking lot and his baseball cap casting shadows.

The man raises a gloved hand, palm up. “Just a joke, kids.”

Perrie catches Louis’ eye, her face expressing her discomfort. Louis limits himself to making a small sound of acknowledgement, and after a few uncomfortable seconds the man tips his baseball cap at them and heads over to his car, a dark blue minivan, whistling a tune.

“Creep,” Perrie mouths as they watch him drive away.

Louis nods in agreement. “That’s the sort of people I have to deal with at this hour. You see what it’s like.”

Perrie laughs. “All the more reason to go out with us. You can shame us all with horror stories of the dreaded graveyard shift.”

The corner of Louis’ mouth lifts. “I’ll think about it,” he says finally.

Perrie’s face breaks into a wide grin. “Yes! Great!”

Her reaction startles a bit of a laugh from Louis. “I’m not promising anything, though.”

“I know, I know. But it’s progress! I love it.” Perrie’s still grinning.

Louis doesn’t get why she’s so eager to get him to go. He’s not the best company and she’s not lacking in friends. He guesses that Perrie, like Niall, are the type of people that have trouble seeing someone alone.

 

Work is boring, playing Candy Crush on his phone and munching on Skittles until his mouth feels tacky from all the sugar. It keeps him awake, though, and it makes him hungry for actual food when he gets out of work.

He burns the frozen pizza a little, not used to using the oven, but it’s edible. It’s 9:25 AM when he’s done eating and he feels stuffed almost to the point of nausea, lying on the couch with the volume low because the movie is full of explosions and gunshots.

When the movie ends he tries to get to the remote, but it’s just out of reach on the floor and he gives up and settles back on the couch, resigned. The new movie is boring, and the dialogue is too low so he misses half of what they’re saying as well.

Louis drifts off around eleven.

*

_He can’t breathe. She claws at the man’s forearms, at his hands, digging her nails in, but she’s weak. He can’t breathe. The pressure in his throat is so painful. He can’t see through the blur of tears in his eyes. He can’t breathe. He can’t breathe. He can’t—_

*

Louis wakes up gasping. Lurching upright, he gets tangled with the blanket and falls off the couch, knocking over everything on the coffee table. He can’t see through the blur of tears in his eyes as he crawls out of the mess, breath rasping in his chest. He scrambles to his feet and runs to the bathroom to throw up, falling on his knees in front of the toilet. He vomits until his ribs and his throat are on fire and he’s shaking and lightheaded when he finally summons the strength to get off the floor.

He rinses his mouth out and staggers to the kitchen, rummaging in the cabinet for a glass after grabbing the bottle of rum Niall left behind the other night. He fumbles with the glass and drops it. It falls to the floor with a crash, shattering. Louis slumps against the counter and takes a swig directly from the bottle. It burns his sore throat so badly colored lights erupt in his vision.

“Fuck,” he croaks.

It’s 1:55 PM and Louis feels like his sanity is hanging by a thread. When he was younger there had been a period of his life when he’d tried to convince himself he was mad. He’d given up on that hope after a bit. But at this moment he feels on the verge of a breakdown. He’s been in this position before, but, as opposed to then, he doesn’t want to lie down and swallow all the pills he can find. He’s restless and desperate and he kind of wants to drive off a bridge.

Louis sweeps the shards of glass to the side with his bare foot and sprints to the door, grabbing nothing but his keys before leaving the apartment.

He sets up the GPS because he has no idea where there’s a bridge nearby. It sets him on a road that goes on and on, scattered houses giving way to a tall, dark forest at either side. It’s 3:33 PM when he starts to think, cynically, that he should have just gone for the pills after all.

After twenty minutes, he stops on the side of the road to check the GPS. It’s set for directions to Bridgeton, Missouri.

Louis lets his breath out in a long, heavy sigh, leaning his forehead on the steering wheel, eyes closed. He sits like that for five minutes, struggling to keep his mind blank.

Then he gets out of the car to piss. He goes a small distance into the forest, pine needles stinging the soles of his bare feet.

He sees it out of the corner of his eye while he’s pulling up the waistband of his sweatpants. He approaches it on stiff legs.

Some animal must have come to investigate because the blanket it was wrapped in is pulled back. The body is stiff and discolored, the decomposition process slowed down by the fierce cold.

Louis chokes when he sees the bruises on the dead woman’s neck, his hands flying up to his own throat where he’d felt the same fingers closing around it.

“Hello there! Need any help?”

Louis whirls around. There’s a young, handsome man with a friendly smile standing a few feet away.

“I saw your car on the side of the road and thought you might’ve broken down?”

Louis watches the man’s face as he glances down and notices the body; the realization of what he’s seeing sinking in.

“Is that—”

The man, Angus, calls the police. Angus is kind to Louis; he sits with him in the car while they wait and offers him a soda, and socks—both of which Louis turns down. Angus clearly thinks Louis just stumbled upon the body—which is true—but apparently the idea that Louis might have put the body there doesn’t even cross his mind. The same won’t be true of the police after everything that’s happened, Louis knows.

Angus talks about nonsense to fill the silence, rubbing Louis’ knee all the while, like Louis is in shock—which he might be, Louis isn’t sure—until they hear the cars coming down the road.

Angus gets out of the car to flag them down though it’s not really necessary. Louis peers out the window and sees the shiny SUV parking alongside the police cars.

Nick stops to talk to Angus, but Harry makes his way over to Louis, coming to a stop by the side of the car. He bends down a little to tap the glass of the car window, looking down at Louis who’s sitting in the passenger seat with his feet up, toes curled underneath him and his arms around his legs.

Louis swallows thickly and reaches for the door handle. Harry opens it all the way and crouches to Louis’ eye level.

“You know we have to take you in now, right?”

Louis nods dumbly.

They don’t take the handcuffs off until they push him into an interrogation room. It’s a small town police station, so it’s a regular room with hardback wood chairs and table and nothing else. The Venetian blinds are closed all the way and the halogen light flickers a little.

Louis pillows his head in his arms on the table and waits, head spinning with vertigo even with his eyes closed.

“Had a pleasant nap?”

Louis raises his head. He wasn’t asleep, he doesn’t think.

It’s Agent Grimshaw with a folder and a sharp smile. “I was afraid we wouldn’t see the last of you, Mr. Tomlinson.”

“Can’t say I’m thrilled to be here either.”

Nick lets out a single peal of loud laughter. “No, I don’t suppose you are.”

Louis rubs his hands together and sits up a little straighter, which makes Nick smile.

“So... you want to tell me how you stumbled upon that body?”

“I was driving. I stopped for a piss. It was there.”

“I want to believe you. Really! I _do_!” Nick insists at Louis’ scoff. “But I marvel at all the coincidences surrounding you. You can understand that, can’t you?”

Louis says nothing. Nick considers him carefully, tapping the folder on the table with one finger.

“You have a long standing prescription for Halcion.”

Louis stills. “I have insomnia.”

“Hm. Did you know that one of the side effects from continued use of sleeping pills can be sleep walking?” Nick says in a conversational tone. “People have been known to eat, and drive, and have sex even, while asleep.”

“What’s your point?” Louis asks irritably.

“I don’t have one. I’m just saying,” Nick replies with a smirk. “Do you know where people usually drive to when they’re asleep? Work. Or school. Church. Places like that... places that have meaning to them.”

Louis twists his fingers in the hem of his maroon jumper. “Right.”

“It’s quite rare, it’s true. But you do have a... history, don’t you?” Nick smooths his palms over the folder on the table in front of him before opening it, squinting down at the page in front of him. “Diagnosed with a dissociative disorder and panic attacks at thirteen. Later received a tentative diagnosis of schizophrenia at seventeen when you spent a month interned at a psychiatric hospital. And you were held for three days at the psychiatric ward three years ago after a failed suicide attempt.”

Louis’ knuckles go white, nails digging into his palms. “And?” he rasps. “What of it?”

“Well. You can understand our concerns—”

“No. That’s bullshit,” Louis hisses. “It’s just easier to pin it on the ‘crazy’ person instead of doing your fucking job right.”

Nick leans back in the chair, looking mildly surprised at his outburst. “I’m trying to do my job. And what I see is someone popping up somewhere he has no business being, and finding a body in the middle of nowhere. My ‘fucking job’, Mr. Tomlinson, is knowing why.” The detective stands up, palms flat on the table, chair screeching as it drags on the floor behind him. “You’re not making my job any easier right now, and that makes me not want to make all this any easier on you.”

Louis looks up at him, expressionless. “You don’t have anything on me, so either you let me go or you get me a lawyer, who will make you let me go. So you can save yourself the effort of trying to threaten me because I’m not going to answer any more questions now, Agent Grimshaw.”

Nick’s mouth curls. “Better get comfortable then, Mr. Tomlinson. You’re in for a long night.”

Louis waits. They let him out to use the bathroom once then take him back to the room. He curls up in the chair, knees to his chest and elbows on his knees, tugging at his hair until his scalp hurts. He’s not sure what he’s supposed to tell a lawyer, but they can’t hold him forever without charges, and he tries to convince himself that there’s nothing they can charge him with that will hold up in court.

An indeterminate amount of time later the door opens again.

“I’m hungry, aren’t you required to feed me?” Louis says, voice muffled, without lifting his head from his knees.

“Three times in a twenty four hour period,” a familiar voice agrees.

Louis’ head shoots up. It’s Harry; Harry in just his dress shirt, sleeves rolled up and top button undone. He places a vending machine sandwich, a banana, and a can of Dr. Pepper in front of Louis.

“Is this standard fare?” Louis asks skeptically, reaching for the soda.

Harry slides into the chair opposite Louis. “Not really. But it’s late and that’s all I could find.”

Louis stares at Harry while he gulps down the soda. “Thanks, I guess.”

Harry’s lips twitch. “You’re welcome, I suppose.”

Louis resists the urge to smile and focuses on peeling the banana. He glances up as he puts the tip in his mouth.

Harry sucks his bottom lip into his mouth for a second before snorting with laughter. “A word of advice: never make eye contact while eating a banana.”

Louis bites off a piece and chews with a frown. “What is this. The bad cop, good cop routine?”

Harry gives a one-sided shrug, still looking relaxed. “Kind of.”

Louis hums noncommittal. “Well, you’re doing all right for now.”

Harry smiles. “I really don’t think you’ve done anything wrong. But we need some answers, Louis. Can I call you Louis?”

Louis rolls his eyes. “I’ve already told you everything I can tell you, Harold. Can I call you Harold?”

Harry huffs, half laughing. “You can call me Harry, if you like. Which is my actual name.”

Louis offers a thin smile. “I don’t have anything else to tell you, Harry. I really don’t.”

Harry’s expression sours. “You’re not helping yourself by refusing to cooperate.”

“This is me cooperating. You wouldn’t know what to do with me if I were being difficult, _Harold._ ”

And Louis could hit himself, because even though he’s scared and more than a little angry, he’s also stupidly attracted to Harry... and apparently this is him flirting while being detained as a murder suspect.

Harry sighs and stands up. “Eat your sandwich.”

Louis gets another trip to the bathroom and some water, and reads the label on the sandwich case and the can until he can recite it from memory before Harry reappears. He has his suit jacket on again and his coat folded over his arm.

“C’mon.”

Louis sits straight but doesn’t move. “Where?”

Harry smiles a little. “Home. You’re free to go.”

Louis gets up from the chair, suddenly acutely conscious of the fact that he’s barefoot and wearing nothing but sweatpants and a worn jumper.

“OK.” He doesn’t question it. “Where’s my car?”

Harry holds the door open for him. “It’s 2AM, you’re not getting your car back right now. But I’ll drive you; I’m headed that way anyway.”

“How do you know which way I live?” Louis asks with a frown. Then he remembers that Harry has access to everything that’s ever been on record in Louis’ life. He thinks about the folder Nick brought and wonders whether Harry read it. “Right.”

Harry doesn’t hide his mild amusement. “Better than a cab. No charge, promise.”

The police officers on duty wave at Harry as he passes through. Louis follows Harry to the SUV, wincing at the cold pavement. He’s shivering violently as he climbs into the car.

Harry throws his coat in the back seat before getting in. “Seat belt,” he says as he backs out of the police station parking lot.

“How come you let me go?” Louis asks, teeth chattering, hands tucked between his thighs.

Harry glances at him and turns up the heating. “We got the results of the autopsy back.”

“And?” Louis asks, not understanding.

“And the time of death. We checked with your work place, camera footage and all, and you have a pretty solid alibi given that two people can’t be in the same place at the same time. Generally.”

“It does seem unlikely,” Louis agrees, and then, because he can’t leave well enough alone. “I could be an accomplice, though.”

Harry shoots him a side-long glance. “We haven’t ruled out the idea,” he says, but his tone is light. “Your car is being processed and you can’t leave the state.”

“That makes sense,” Louis mumbles. He can’t shake the cold in his bones and he’s hit by a sudden low, exhausted after hours of sitting in a room struggling to not think. He rests his head against the glass and looks out at the window. It’s pitch dark except for the car headlamps.

“There’s a hoodie in the back seat if you can reach it,” Harry says, startling Louis out of his reverie.

“I’m fine, thanks.”

“Louis, you’re shivering. And I can’t turn the heating on higher without having a heatstroke. Don’t make me stop the car and get it myself.” Harry looks at him, eyebrows raised comically.

Louis is surprised to feel his muscles shift to arrange themselves into a small smile. He finds the Green Packers hoodie in the backseat and pulls it on, feeling very strange about the whole thing. It does help though. “Thanks.”

Harry makes small talk while he drives, and Louis listens with half an ear, gaze unfocused on the dark shadows zooming past and then the buildings. What lights there are at this time of night seem remote, their warmth unreachable. He does learn that Harry is originally from northern California; that he studied Law and then did a masters in Criminology after joining the FBI at twenty three; that he’s been a detective for three years now and a special agent for one. He learns Harry has a sister and likes football and has a collection of cacti. His rambling about the arguments for and against the use of the word cacti versus cactuses takes them all the way to Louis’ apartment.

Harry parks in front of the building and turns to Louis after turning off the car. It’s 2:44 AM. “We’re here.”

Louis nods. “Yeah. Thanks.”

Harry pulls on his bottom lip, staring at Louis. “Mind if I go up?”

Louis’ fingers slip on the door handle. “That’s forward,” he says, taken aback.

Harry cracks a bit of a grin, shrugging without a trace of embarrassment.

Louis tugs at the laces of the hoodie. “I do mind, actually.”

Harry reaches for his coat in the back. “I can come up now, on my own. Or later with a warrant.”

“I have a solid alibi, you said,” Louis protests as he gets out of the car.

“Only for this murder.”

“Fine,” Louis huffs, slamming the door shut.

The apartment is a mess. It’s something Louis knew intellectually, but he hadn’t felt as self-conscious about it when Niall had come over. Maybe because Niall didn’t snoop, while Harry stares unapologetically.

“What happened?” he asks when he sees the broken glass in the kitchen.

“What do you think?”

Louis doesn’t miss the way Harry’s eyes linger on the bottle of rum. Harry wanders over to the living room and picks the blanket and the remnants of Louis’ meal off the living room floor without comment. He runs a hand over the back of the couch, and rifles through Louis’ vinyls and old CDs.

“Do you only listen to classical music?” Harry asks. His tone is curious, not judgemental.

Louis could tell him how its complexity entrances him while its simplicity relaxes him. How it’s cathartic and distracting and how it fills the dark spaces inside him with light like nothing else has. “Mostly.”

Harry nods. “My roommate in college was a big fan of classical music too. She hated me, said she could hear my awful rock music even through my headphones.”

Louis smiles. “Rock makes my head hurt, so I’m afraid I’m going to side with your roommate.”

Harry shakes his head in mock affront. “Is Rachmaninoff—” he trips over the name, reading it from the cover of a CD,  “—really so different from The Ramones?”

Louis makes a face. “Yes. Without a doubt, yes, Harry.”

Harry giggles. “Do you play?” he asks, going over to the piano.

“A bit.”

Harry nods and heads down the hall, flicking the light on for an instant to peer into the bathroom shamelessly before going into Louis’ bedroom. Louis squeezes his eyes shut and knocks his head back against the wall for a moment with a sigh before following him.

He finds Harry in the middle of his room, looking around while readjusting his coat. Louis leans against the door frame with a small frown and watches Harry look under the bed and sort through his drawers.

Louis goes up to see what he’s looking at when Harry freezes all of a sudden, face going slack. It’s a dildo that he had forgotten was at the bottom of a drawer.

Louis chokes and shoves the drawer closed, hiding it from sight.

“What exactly are you looking for?” he asks, red-faced.

Harry gapes at him for a moment, running his eyes down Louis’ body like he can’t help himself before snapping back up to his face. “I’ll know when I see it,” he says with a cough.

Louis rolls his eyes, face still burning. He sees Harry do a double take and frown in confusion while peering into the closet. Harry pulls out a shoe box lined with colorful wrapping paper, inside it’s full of cheap little trinkets: animal figure key-chains from the zoo, a miniature rag doll, plastic rings in the shape of stars and frilly bows...

“What’s this?” Harry demands, unsmiling.

Louis wraps his arms around his middle, his chest aching at the sight of them. Harry’s stirring up things he’s kept in the bottom of his drawer and the back of his mind. “They’re birthday presents from my sisters.”

Harry examines him, assessing. “Your youngest sisters are about to finish high school, aren’t they?”

“It’s from when they were kids. I wasn’t home as much as I would have liked to and... it has emotional value.” Louis is surprised at himself. He hasn’t talked to anyone about his sisters, not even Niall.

“Right.”

Louis narrows his eyes at Harry’s sudden change in attitude. “What—You think I’m a pedophile now too?” he snarls as it dawns on him what Harry’s considering. “Get the fuck out of my apartment.”

Harry puts down the box and shakes his head, not quite meeting Louis’ eyes. “Louis. It’s my job—”

“To think everyone you meet is a potential psychopath or a rapist!?”

“Yes,” Harry replies simply.

Louis’ upper lip curls in disgust. Embarrassed at what he’s revealed about himself, wittingly and unwittingly. “Get out. We’re done here. If you want to come back you better have a warrant.”

Harry holds his gaze for a few seconds longer before nodding tightly and ducking around Louis and down the hall.

“Good night, Louis,” he says at the door.

Louis stares at him stonily. After a moment, Harry leaves, closing the door carefully behind him.

Louis walks around the apartment slowly, turning off the lights. He showers, the water too hot, trying to keep his skin warm as his mind is filled with images of the cold, bluish skin of the corpse.

When he gets out of the shower and sees the clothes he left on the bed  he realizes he still has Harry’s hoodie. He picks it up and brings it to his face. It’s still warm and it smells of expensive cologne, car freshener, and a whiff of fried food. Louis doesn’t take any sleeping pills—he’s so tired he can’t bring himself to get up for a glass of water to swallow them. Instead he curls around Harry’s hoodie, the fabric smooth and alien against his cheek. It’s 4:13 when he falls asleep.

***

“How are you feeling?”

Louis shrugged, keeping his gaze on the view of the lake from the window. “Fine. Better, I guess.”

The doctor checked the screen monitor of the computer. “I see Dr. Morrison lowered your dosage because you were having issues with dizziness.” She peered over her glasses at Louis. “Do you find that has helped?”

Louis nodded. “Yeah. Definitely.”

The mouse clicking was loud in the relative silence of the office, clashing with the regular, muted ticking of a mantle clock. “You’ve reported a definite decrease in the frequency of dissociative episodes. We have to keep working on regulating your sleep—we can try Lunesta, see how that goes.” She glanced at him, peering over her glasses. “Is it true you haven’t had any panic attacks since we last saw each other?”

Louis nodded, meeting the doctor’s probing stare head on.

“Good. That’s very good, Louis.” She rolled the wheel of the mouse, eyes flitting down the screen. “You’re responding very well. I think it’s time for you to go home. We’ll keep monitoring your progress and any changes in possible side-effects—”

“But I thought the—” he struggled with the word “—the _visions_ and all that... The getting lost in my head. And the nightmares... I thought they would stop completely. I thought this would make me _normal_.” His voice broke on the last word.

The doctor’s expression was sympathetic. “It can take some time to get the full effect of the treatment, Louis, but it is working. Your mother said you’d been struggling for a long time, and I know you were reluctant to get help, that you felt pressured to come here. But you’ve said yourself that it’s better now that you’re taking the medication.”

Louis slumped in his chair. “Right.”

“I know you’re turning eighteen but I trust you’ll be responsible enough to keep it up when you leave for college, hm? Don’t want to jeopardize all the progress,” she went on.

Louis’ smile didn’t reach his eyes. “I will. ‘course I will. Whatever works, right?”

***

It really hits him the next morning, curled up on the couch spilling milk down his chin while he watches the news at 10 AM. The smiling picture on the woman on the television screen superimposed by the mental image of her stiff, discolored face. The same face which had disturbed his sleep in what he knew was a regular nightmare, not one that had be written down.

‘The body was identified as belonging to Rachel Poole, 34, who was reported missing  in late November. The involvement of the FBI seems to point toward this being yet another victim of a serial killer whom many have begun to refer to as the Roadside Strangler.’

 

Louis gets a ride from Niall to retrieve his car from the police station in the afternoon.  He spends the day trying to distract himself, and when he gets in the car at 9:32 PM it feels surreal to be going to work after what happened.

“You didn’t come,” Perrie accuses him, pouting, index finger an inch from his chest, obviously resisting the wish to poke him. “I was convinced this time you would.”

Louis sighs. “Sorry, Pez. Something came up.”

Perrie echoes his sigh, then raises her eyebrows, perking up. “Liam asked after you, by the way.”

“What?”

Perrie nods, rubbing her hands together against the cold. “Seemed to take offense that none of us knows what you get up to when you’re not at work.”

Louis pinches the bridge of his nose. “What the hell?”

“Maybe he has a crush on you.” Perrie cackles.

Louis gives her an unimpressed look. “I’m sure that’s what it is.”

Her giggling makes Louis smile, but once he’s settled in his chair his amusement turns to irritation. Between Liam and Agent Grimshaw breathing down his neck, and Harry... whatever it is that’s going on with Harry—on top of a flare up of his issues, he’s feeling the strain.

His mouth falls open when Liam has the nerve to walk into the store an hour later. All that keeps Louis from lobbing a rock hard, old, half-eaten toffee he’s found in a drawer is that there’s a man filling up the tank outside.

Liam wanders over to a shelf and keeps sneaking glances at Louis while pretending to be overwhelmed by his shopping choices.

“If you think you’re being subtle, you’re not,” Louis calls out, even with the imminent arrival of a customer. “It’d be more convincing if you weren’t at the menstrual hygiene section.”

Liam goes red. “It’s for my girlfriend. Sophia. She’s real.”

Louis snorts.

The man who had been filling his tank comes in, whistling. He grabs a pack of gum and slaps it on the counter.

“‘evening, gentlemen.”

Louis chokes on his on saliva and tries to clear his throat. “Sorry.”

“That’s quite alright.” The man searches in his wallet in a leisurely manner. “Did you go out with the lady in the end?” he drawls.

Louis frowns, eyes watering because he can’t stop coughing. It takes him a moment to think back on the creep that talked to him and Perrie a few nights ago. He doesn’t answer, taking the credit card and charging for the gas with a hand over his mouth, trying to stifle his coughing.

“Something in my throat,” he wheezes as he passes the card back.

“Don’t think you charged for the gum, kid.”

Louis did forget. His chest is starting to hurt. “It’s fine. On the house,” he gasps.

“That’s nice of you, thanks.” He shoots Louis a lazy grin before turning to leave.  “Have a good night.”

“Sir, is that your car out there?” Liam cuts in, pointing at the dark blue minivan. “Looks like your left tail light is out. You need to get that fixed.”

The man’s grin doesn’t falter. “I hadn’t noticed. Thank you, Officer. Will do.”

The man leaves with a wave, whistling again.

Louis’ cough dies out abruptly and he bends over, gulping down lungfuls of air, gripping the counter with both hands.

“Are you OK?” Liam asks, coming up to the counter.

“Don’t be such a hypocrite,” Louis rasps.

Liam’s face scrunches up. “I’m not... that.”

“What is your problem with me anyway?” Louis demands as he gets his breath back. “Niall and Perrie like you, so you must have some redeeming qualities, but you’ve been a dick to me since day one.”

Liam drums his fingers on the counter. “I don’t... I don’t trust you,” he says thoughtfully. “I think you’re hiding something.”

Louis rolls his eyes. “Sorry to burst your boy scout bubble but everyone is hiding something. The man who just left drowns kittens.”

Liam’s eyes bulge and Louis does a double take on what he said, shaking his head and hoping Liam plays it off as hyperbole. “You know what I think. I think that’s an excuse and you don’t like me because you think I’m a drug addict, and you’re an asshole.”

Liam shakes his head emphatically, eyes wide. “No. No!” He rubs his elbow, chin to his chest. “I just don’t know how to act around you. You’re not... you’re not like other people.”

Louis has to laugh. He doesn’t get that vibe at all, but he understands Perrie’s joke about the crush at that moment. “Right. Well, let me know when you figure it out, yeah?”

Liam’s face contorts like he wants to say more, but finally his shoulders sag and his face settles. “I’d best get going.”

Louis gives a little ironic wave and settles down for the rest of his shift.

*

_The quilted bed spread has a dinosaur pattern and the sheets are blue. He’s lying on his side with a toddler in the cradle of his arm. The table lamp is behind him, warm on her hair over her shoulders._

_“And so the evil stepmother fell to her doom,” she reads._

_His voice breaks at the sound of heavy footsteps in the hall. A shadow crawls across the floor toward them under the door as whoever is outside in the hall comes to a stop._

*

When Louis goes to write down the dream before leaving for work on Tuesday he can’t find his journal. He writes it down a spare bit of paper anyway, but his palms don’t stop sweating as he tears through the mess in his room trying to find it. He’s the latest he’s ever been to work and the anxious knot in his stomach doesn’t go away for the whole of his shift.

When he leaves the station he lights up a cigarette on his walk to the car, then he chain smokes another three while he drives, even though it makes his head swim.

It’s 7:08 AM when he stops—and it’s not in front of his apartment complex. The houses that surround him are dark except for the odd bedroom or bathroom light on of people getting ready for work.

Louis gets out of the car and stares at the wreckage in front of him. The house had burned down; what’s still standing is charcoal black and exposed. He has no idea where he is. Louis scrubs his palms over his face and squats with his face buried in his hands. It’s starting to drizzle.

“Louis.”

Louis almost overbalances and falls on his ass, caught off guard at the sound of Harry’s voice.

“What are you doing here?” he asks.

Harry looks down at him, long coat billowing behind him. “I followed you,” he says frankly.

Louis stands up, tugging his jumper down to cover the tips of his fingers.

“What are you doing?” Harry asks, voice hushed.

Louis sighs heavily. “I have no idea,” he admits with a humorless breath of laughter.

Harry stares at him in silence. And Louis is tired. He’s so fucking tired of it all.

“Were you staking me out for a reason or?”

“Yes.” Harry glances at the sky—the rain is getting heavier—before pulling out Louis’ journal from an inside pocket of his coat. “This. What is this?”

Louis feels the blood drain from his face. He lunges at Harry to take the journal from him, but Harry holds it up out of his reach.

“You didn’t have a warrant, you bastard!” Louis snarls and, giving up on taking the journal from Harry, tries to hit him instead.

Harry grips his wrists to stop him. “Stop it, Louis.” He barely dodges Louis’ fist to the face as he gets an arm free. “Louis! I just want to talk!”

Louis stops struggling abruptly and lets his arms hang at his sides, head down as he fights back tears. No one’s ever seen his dream diaries. No one.

“Please,” Harry says softly. “Can we talk?”

“At the police station?” Louis mutters, glancing up at him, between terrified and furious.

Harry shakes his head, expression sincere and contrite. “No. Off the record, I promise.”

They drive in their separate cars to the nearest diner and sit opposite each other in one of the booths at the back. Harry insists on ordering a full breakfast for both of them even though Louis feels nauseous just from the smell of the place.

“Talk to me,” Harry says, and it’s only the fact that is sounds like a plea more than an order that gets Louis to respond.

“Ask me something,” he counters, because it might be easier to answer a question than to find a away to explain something he can’t even explain to himself.

“What’s in the journal?”

“Dreams.”

“Those are your dreams?” Harry asks with an undercurrent of horror in his voice.

“It’s not illegal now, dreaming. Is it?” Louis snaps, because it’s easier to respond with anger than to acknowledge the sympathy in Harry’s voice. He manages a wan smile for the waitress as she brings them eggs on toast and bacon and a stack of waffles.

Harry doesn’t speak for a while, devouring his breakfast while Louis draws circles with the yolk in his plate with his fork.

“The bacon’s good. Try some?” Harry says suddenly with a small, encouraging smile.

Louis can’t wrap his head around Harry; he doesn’t understand him at all. But he doesn’t understand himself either because he reaches for the bacon and takes a small bite. Harry breaks into a relieved smile and does something on his phone while Louis picks at his food some more. But Louis catches him stealing glances at him.

“That dream you had—July 16th  last year. About drowning in a lake. Do you remember that one?” Harry asks when Louis has finished eating.

Louis nods slowly. “I remember all of them.”

Harry pulls on his bottom lip, gaze locked on Louis. “You wrote exactly how Elisa Ramirez was killed.”

Louis raises his coffee mug to his lips with trembling hands. “I must have read about it, or seen it on TV or something.”

Harry shakes his head. “I worked that case. There are details in that journal that we never released to the public. There’s no way you could have known that.”

Louis puts his mug down and folds his hands one over the other on the table. “What do you want me to say, Harry?” he asks wearily.

“How—”

“I don’t know how!” Louis bursts, interrupting. His chest is tight and his heartbeat picks up. “I don’t know, Harry. I don’t... I don’t know. I don’t—”

“Louis—” Harry cuts in, reaching out to squeeze his hands. “Hey, look at me. Breathe.”

Louis’ breath is coming too fast and he’s shaking, sweat beading his temples and sliding down his back. He has enough experience to recognize he’s on the verge of a panic attack. He finds himself grounded by Harry’s green eyes and pink lips, although it feels like his mouth is moving out of sync with his voice.

“Do you want to go outside?” Harry asks.

Louis shakes his head jerkily.

“OK. Breathe. That’s it. You’re all right, Lou.” Harry’s voice is slow and soothing. His attention is concentrated on Louis. “I downloaded some music on my phone. Beethoven and Mozart—I thought I’d start with the classics,” Harry tells him in a casual tone, rubbing circles on the back of Louis’ hand. “You had a lot of Russian names in your collection, but I couldn’t remember any of them.”

The fuzziness in Louis’ head starts clearing, his breathing regulating. “Everyone knows Tchaikovsky. Three of the most famous ballets are by him,” he whispers.

Harry smiles. “Swan Lake and... The Nutcracker, right? What’s the other one?”

“Sleeping Beauty.”

Harry echoes him, smiling softly. After another moment, Louis sits back and finds he can take a deep breath again.

“Better?” Harry asks, righting one of the glasses on the table and reaching for the water jug.

Louis nods, accepting the glass of water. “Thanks.”

Harry shakes his head. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think—”

“It’s fine. It would be weirder if you didn’t ask questions. But I... I really don’t know. I have dreams. I’ve had them for as long as I can remember. Sometimes I go to places or know things or feel things. I don’t know how it works. It just happens. I wish it didn’t, but it does. I don’t know how and I don’t know why.”

He’s breathless again by the time he finishes his little rushed speech.  
Harry bites his lip. “That’s— It must be—Fuck. I can’t even imagine having those kinds of dreams... as a kid?”

Louis lets out a humorless laugh. “Yeah. Messed me up big time.”

Harry frowns a little. “Have you talked about this with anyone? Going through all that on your own...”

Louis blinks trying to get rid of the stinging in his eyes. “Told my mum. And a couple of psychiatrists. Not the best idea.”

He can’t bring himself to look at Harry, but he’s comforted by the gentleness in his voice. “The treatment at the hospital didn’t help?”

“No. I lied to the doctors and stopped taking the medication once I left home.” Louis’ lip wobbles and his voice starts quivering. “I _tried_. I followed the treatment for four months, but anti-psychotics have awful side effects and it wasn’t _doing_ anything.”

He jumps when Harry reaches to hold his hand again.

“I’m sorry,” Harry says simply, sincerely. “I wish there was something I could do to make it better for you.”

That surprises a weak, watery laugh from Louis. “I don’t think this is how you’re supposed to behave toward murder suspects, Harry.”

Harry squeezes his hand. “You’re not a suspect. You don’t even fit the profile.”

“Oh. Well. That’s a relief.”

The corner of Harry’s mouth lifts for a second before he goes serious again. “I’m sorry about the other night. And I’m sorry I took your journal.”

“It’s your job, isn’t it?” Louis replies without bitterness.

“It is. But that doesn’t make it right.”

“It’s fine. You’re paying for breakfast, aren’t you?” he jokes weakly.

Harry’s face breaks into a grin. “I am.”

Harry insists on walking Louis up to his apartment, keeping his hand spread on Louis’ lower back on the climb up the stairs. It’s intimate—more intimate than anything Louis has done in a long time—but he’s comfortable and he has no desire to break their point of contact. The warmth of Harry’s touch lingers even they separate when they reach his front door.

“Will you be OK?” Harry asks.

Louis’ lips twitch. “I’ve made it this far in life. I think I’ll survive another night, Agent Styles. And your name sounds ridiculous by the way.”

Harry’s honk of laughter is loud and out of place on Louis’ doorstep. But Louis likes how it makes warmth spread through his chest.

“I was afraid I’d have to change it to join the FBI.”

Louis shakes his head, smiling. “It suits you,” he says, then makes a silly face. “See what I did there?”

Harry bites his lip through a giggle.

“Can I have your number?” he blurts out while Louis is considering whether to go in for a goodbye hug or not.

“Don’t you have it already?” Louis teases, although it takes him a moment to answer because of the surprise.

Harry blushes. “Agent Styles has it. But Harry’s asking.”

“For a friend?” Louis jokes. He hasn’t felt this giddy in ages, his tongue running ahead of him in a way that’s fun and not mortifying.

Harry groans, covering his face with his hands. “Is this some form of revenge?”

Louis bursts into a fit of giggles. It catches him by surprise—he’d forgotten that was something that happened. “No. It’s me having a bit of fun.” And he is, amazingly.

Harry’s eyes rove over his face, looking entranced. “You have a really nice smile, you know.”

Louis ducks his head, and though he presses his lips together he can’t stop smiling. “You already got my number, Harold.”

Harry’s wide smile is all dimples and teeth and Louis’ breath catches when Harry steps closer. “Is this OK?” he asks, waiting for Louis to nod before leaning in to embrace him.

Louis is a little stiff at first, but with his nose tucked in against the side of Harry’s neck he feels himself relax, soothed by his comforting scent and the warmth of his body. He kind of wants to stay like that forever. He pulls back eventually, though, and they stutter through a quick goodbye.

Louis doesn’t close the door behind him until the echo of Harry’s footsteps on the stairs has died out.

He uses Harry’s hoodie as a pillow and wakes up for work more refreshed than he has in weeks.

*

The next day Harry texts him if he can come over for lunch. Louis stares at his phone biting his nails for two minutes before answering.

**11:43 AM we’ll have to order out**

Harry replies immediately. ‘Chinese? I’ll be there in 30 min’

Louis grins when the text is followed two minutes later by a string of smiling emoji.

He considers clearing some space on the kitchen table but gives up, knowing half an hour isn’t enough to make much of a dent in the mess. Instead he changes into a nicer jumper, exchanges his joggers for skinny jeans, and tries to arrange his hair into something decent.

His smile is tremulous when he opens the door. Harry leans in to give him a quick hug before he even takes off his coat or puts down his briefcase and the bag with their meal.

Harry snorts and giggles at the cartoons while they eat, and pouts ridiculously when Louis pokes fun at him over how useless he is with the chopsticks.

“What are you doing here?” Louis asks him wonderingly, the words slipping out as he watches Harry stretch with a groan, the buttons of his shirt straining over his chest and the material over his thighs going taut.

Harry rolls his head on the back of the couch to look at him, back still arched and toes pointed. “I wanted to see you.”

It’s simple and straightforward and Louis doesn’t know where to look, feeling shy before Harry’s direct gaze.

“What did you tell Grimshaw?” Louis asks finally, scratching his ankle. He’s curled up on the end of the couch with his knees to his chest, resting his elbow on the backrest.

Harry folds himself up into a sitting position. “That I had to clear my mind. We’re not making much progress in the case, to be honest.”

“Oh.”

Harry sits up a little straighter, fingers twitching on his lap before reaching for his briefcase by the side of the couch. “We could use some fresh perspective. That’s— I also wanted to talk to you about that, actually.”

Louis feels frozen in place. His heart is pounding as he watches Harry open the briefcase and pull out a thick folder. 

“I was thinking yesterday,” Harry says eagerly. “Someone with your… abilities—It could be useful.”

Louis can only stare at him.

“I brought the case files. Maybe you can… get something from them? I don’t know.” He holds the folder out to Louis who makes no move to take it.

“I can’t… I can’t control it, Harry,” he breathes, shaking his head.

“But you could try?” Harry insists. “Have you ever tried?”

Louis scoots back as much as he can, almost sitting on the armrest. “I—What—”

Harry follows him, digging his knee into the couch. “You said you didn’t know why you have these abilities. Maybe this is why! You could help—”

Louis shakes his head hard. “Stop it. Stop it.”

Harry wraps a hand around Louis’ ankle in a loose grip, rubbing circles on the arch of his foot. “Louis—”

It’s the first time Harry has touched him that has had Louis wanting to shake him off.

“Do you—Can you even imagine the responsibility? Do you understand the… the pressure you’re putting on me?” Louis chokes.

Harry bites his lip, looking torn. “Won’t you at least try? You were looking for purpose. Maybe this is it.”

Louis snatches the folder from Harry’s hand and opens it on his lap. He flips through the pictures and papers though his vision is blurred with tears.

“Lou—” Harry gasps, squeezing his ankle.

Louis pushes his hand off and keeps going through the folder until he’s done. He snaps it closed with shaking hands, wracked by violent sobs, and raises his eyes to Harry, who’s staring at him wide eyed. Louis shoves the folder at his chest. “There. Nothing.” It’s meant to sound biting, but it comes out as a whimper.

Harry’s face is a picture of dismay. “Louis. Fuck. I’m… I’m so sorry—”

Louis hides his face against his knees. “I want you to leave, please.”

“Lou—”

“Get out!” Louis shrieks before bursting into a fresh wave of sobs. He jumps off the couch and runs to the door, flinging it open.

“OK! I’m leaving. I’m leaving,” Harry says quickly, standing up and gathering his things. He stops in front of Louis at the door with his shoes still in his hands and his briefcase and coat tucked under his arm. “Lou, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have—”

Louis starts closing the door, forcing him to step outside.

“I’m sorry—”

Louis closes the door in Harry’s face, almost catching his toes.

He think he can hear Harry sigh and then swear on the other side of the door, but he’s crying too hard to be sure. He wanders over to the bathroom, feeling sick to his stomach, but the nausea abates after he presses his hot cheek to the cold tile. He feels betrayed in a way he hasn’t since he told his mother what was going on with him and she bullied him into the psychiatric hospital. And he feels _used_. And pathetic—because how could he have believe that _Agent Harry E. Styles_ could ever want anything from him but to get his case solved.

He splashes some water on his face after a while and tries to swallow the lump in his throat, although it won’t quite go away. Wiping his face with the sleeve of his jumper he goes in search of his phone, choking a little when he sees the remnants of their meal on the coffee table and the imprint of Harry’s body on the couch.

There are fifteen texts and three missed calls from Harry, but he ignores them in favor of texting Niall with trembling fingers.

**2:24 PM Can I come over?**

**2:26 PM Sure ! Get over here!!**

Niall’s apartment is not far from his own, and he never fails to cheer Louis up at least a little bit. He knows he won’t be able to go to sleep now unless he takes his sleeping pills, and he’s afraid he’ll let his hand slip when shaking out his usual three pills. He feels miserable enough, but he won’t. He won’t.

He bundles himself up in his parka and makes sure to put on shoes before getting his keys and going down to his car.

 

Louis drives with the radio on for a change, humming along to a pop song. He’s caught up in the song, although the chorus is repetitive. The end of the song fades into static. When Louis goes to fiddle with the radio he becomes aware he’s stopped the car and is idling in the clearing in front of a house surrounded by a tall, dark forest. He blinks and kills the engine, his ears ringing in the sudden silence. He’s not anywhere near Niall’s place. He has no idea where he is.

He looks up at the ceiling of his car, blinking back tears.

“Fuck.” He hits the steering wheel with his fist once. Then again until he’s pummeling the steering wheel. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!” He gets louder with each repetition until the word transforms into an inarticulate yell. He holds onto the steering wheel with both hands, hanging his head and breathing hard. “Fuck,” he whispers.

After a deep breath he reaches for his phone to send Niall a message.

**5:03 PM sorry I’m late got lost on the way**

He drops the phone when a gun shot rings, loud and clear, somewhere outside.

“What...”

He can’t see anything from the car, just trees shrouded in mist in the growing darkness. After a moment he gets out of the car, walking around the house with slow, cautious steps. When he rounds the corner of the house he sees a man pointing a rifle in the direction of a shack with heaps of bricks and other construction materials around it. The shot rings through the air so loud it hurts Louis’ ears. A woman screams and Louis catches signs of movement inside the shack.

He must have made some sort of sound because the man with the rifle turns his head around. Their eyes meet. Louis recognizes the man from the gas station who’d butted into his conversation with Perrie and who had been there the night he’d talked to Liam. He can tell the man recognizes him too.

Mouth dry, Louis whirls around and runs. He trips on a rock, but rights himself before falling. He doesn’t look back and is almost to the car when he’s yanked back, a hand fisted in the hood of his parka. The collar of his jacket digs into his throat and he chokes as he’s jerked back. A strong, thick arm closes across his neck and he’s dragged back toward the back of the house. He scratches at the man’s forearm and tries to stomp on his feet with his heel to no avail.

“Come out or I’ll kill him!” The man shouts, directing his speech at the shack. His grip around Louis’ neck tightens, making Louis’ vision swim. “And then I’ll kill you. It’s almost sundown. You think you can stay out at night in this cold?”

Louis’ head is buzzing and his limbs feel heavy and disconnected from him; his struggling gets weaker with each passing second.

“Don’t. Please don’t.” Barbara comes out of the shack, covered in scratches, her dress dark with sweat.

“Good girl.”

Louis wobbles in place when the man lets him go, legs reluctant to support his weight.  He hears Barbara scream again before a burst of sharp pain in his head makes everything go black.

*

Louis wakes up completely disoriented, unsure of how long he’s been unconscious. His head is pounding and swallowing is very painful, the front of his neck tender to the touch. Louis is cold: his shoes and jacket have been taken and his jumper is thin. The basement is bare cement, with exposed plumbing in the low ceiling and a single, dim light bulb. A lidless toilet and a low metal cot that’s been fixed to the floor with cement so that it can’t be moved are the only things in the room. His hands are untied but he’s shackled to a foot of the cot by a cuff around his ankle.

The click of a lock and footsteps on the stairs leading up to the main floor of the house make him sit up. Everything tilts and the edges of his vision go black for a few seconds before it clears and he can see Barbara standing at the foot of the stairs with a plastic tray and a rueful smile.

“How’s your head?” she asks in a soft voice.

“Fine, I think.” He winces at the sound of his voice, hoarse and weak. "Throat's worse."

Barbara bites her lip. “Have some water, it might help.”

She hands over the plastic cup and Louis drinks thirstily in spite of the pain. “Thanks,” he croaks.

Barbara sits down on the cot next to him, setting down the tray. “Anyone know you’re here?” she asks handing him a flat bowl with gooey looking oatmeal.

Louis pokes the spoon at it. “No.”

Barbara throws her head back and lets her breath out in a long sigh.

“I’m sorry I ruined your escape.”

“Oh, no. Don’t blame yourself. It was a shit plan,” she says wearily. “I’ve tried three times. He’s getting tired of it—of me. I’m good with the kid, but not great, so it’s only a matter of time now.”

Louis has to push the oatmeal away after just two spoonfuls, his throat too painful to swallow anything remotely solid. “The kid?”

Barbara shakes her head and peers at him carefully. “Have we met?”

Louis nods and sips the water slowly. “Gas station. The night you were...”

She raises her eyebrows but her eyes are dull. “Oh, that’s right. Seems ages ago. How long has it been?”

Louis does a quick mental count. He holds up ten fingers.

Barbara scrubs her face with her hand. Then, after a pause: “Lauren... she’s dead.” It’s not a question.

Louis doesn’t have to speak to confirm it. Barbara glances at his face and nods, face expressionless.

An indistinct shout from upstairs makes them both jump.

“I have to go. You should get some rest... I think he wants to ask you some questions later.”

She takes everything with her and leaves Louis alone, the click of the door locking behind her seeming to echo around him.


	2. Chapter 2

Harry runs his fingers through his hair over and over again, his elbows on the table in front of him and his neck muscles painfully stiff. 

“I feel like I should take up smoking again. My brain is _dead_. I could think better if I had a smoke.” Nick is rambling, has been for the past fifteen minutes, leaning back in his chair until he’s in danger of falling off.

Harry doesn’t bother answering. They’re officially stuck. They’re stuck and neither of them can _think_. They need the rest of the team, but Cara, Glenne, and Azoff are on another case across the country. 

“I vote we go for it,” Harry mumbles. He hasn’t had a cigarette in two years but this seems like a good moment to take up bad habits, what with how they have a case they can’t crack and how he screwed up with Louis so badly that whenever he thinks about it he wants to punch himself—and cry. He cried that night in his hotel room, but he can’t cry at the police station. 

“My friend is missing!” 

Nick almost falls off his chair when he jumps in surprise at the bellow outside the office. Harry and Nick exchange a confused, curious look. Harry peeks out into the hall. 

“Sir, we can’t file a report until twenty-four hours have passed.” The police officer behind the desk is young and his attitude is timid even though the man he’s talking to doesn’t look very intimidating. 

“Is there a problem?” Liam comes out of another office with a wary look, eyebrows pinched. 

“Liam!” The man who had been shouting rushes toward Liam and gives him a quick hug. “Liam, it’s Louis. He’s missing.”

Harry feels himself stiffen at the sound of that name and he edges closer. 

“What? Niall, what are you talking about?”

“He was supposed to come over to my apartment yesterday but he never showed up—”

Liam rubs the back of his neck. “Louis isn’t the most reliable—”

Harry interrupts Niall’s furious retort. “Louis Tomlinson?” he asks, voice low.

Niall turns to look at him in surprise while Liam frowns.

“Yeah. You know him?” Niall asks, obviously confused.

Harry swallows thickly, then motions for them to follow. “Come with me.”

He leads them to an empty office and sits behind the desk. 

“Explain,” he says when Liam and Niall are seated.

“Louis is missing!” Niall says immediately, his hands on the desk curling into fists.

Liam makes a small, disbelieving noise. “Niall...”

Harry wants to scream. “Liam, shut up. Niall? Niall, explain from the beginning, please.”

Niall takes a deep breath. “Louis called me yesterday to ask if he could come over to my place—”

“What time?” Harry interrupts.

“Around half past two. I’d just got home from work and I was knackered, but it’s so rare for Louis to call. And he sounded upset.”

Harry’s eyelid twitches. 

“I dozed off while I was waiting for him, and when I woke up I saw he’d texted me that he was going to be late. He texted me at five!” He holds out his phone for Harry to see the text. 

Liam leans over to get a look as well. “What? How could he get lost on the way? Doesn’t he live like...  twenty minutes from your place?”

Niall nods emphatically. “Yes. Exactly!” He looks at Harry, imploring. “I know something’s wrong.”

Harry rubs the bridge of his nose, keeping his eyes closed. After a moment he gets to his feet. “I need to think. Liam, have someone take Niall’s statement.”

He goes over to the office he and Nick are using on stilted legs. He leans on the back of the door after closing it carefully behind him. 

“Tell me what we’ve got. Right now, what do we know?”

Nick raises an eyebrow but doesn’t ask any questions. Harry is very fond of Nick. 

“White, straight male. Thirties or forties. Lower middle class. The women all went missing in different areas and their bodies were found far in between towns, so he drives a car that’s inconspicuous, but big enough to hide a body. Disposing of the bodies by the side of the road shows contempt for women; not bothering to hide them, arrogance. He’s meticulous enough to avoid leaving evidence, but not sophisticated. Although the fact that all the abductions have gone unnoticed suggests he has some kind of ruse to lure his victims.”

“Except the last abduction didn’t go unnoticed,” Harry speaks up.

Nick nods. “No. He was willing to kill the spare and didn’t bother to hide it. So he targets each woman specifically. But we don’t know why. He keeps them for at least a week, cares for them well until the moment he kills them.”

“They were beaten before he strangled them. That reveals anger. It’s personal. He kills them when they fail to live up to his fantasy,” Harry finishes in a monotone.

“But what is his fantasy?” 

They fall silent, the question hanging between them, unanswered. The clock on the wall ticks audibly while Harry scrunches his face up and tries to will himself to think.

“Harry,” Nick says. 

He doesn’t have to say anything further. Harry forces himself to look at Nick. “Louis Tomlinson is missing.”

Nick raises his eyebrows and tilts his head questioningly.

Harry sighs and sits down heavily. “I have reasons to believe his disappearance might be related to the case.”

“Why?” Nick asks. 

“It’s complicated,” Harry replies with a grimace.

Nick stares at Harry, deadpan. “C’mon, Harold. You can trust me.”

Harry stares back, hesitating, then nods. He trusts Nick more than anyone besides his mother and sister. He reaches for his briefcase and pulls out Louis’ journal, setting it on the table between them. It’s pages are bookmarked now, with sticky notes with the victim’s names matching their entries. 

“What’s this?” Nick says curiously, sliding the journal towards him. 

Harry watches Nick as he skims through the bookmarked pages, face unreadable. 

“This belongs to Tomlinson?” Nick asks once he’s done. 

Harry gives a sharp nod. “He’s not the killer,” he adds quickly.

Nick rolls his eyes. “I know, Harry. So... what does this mean? He has... visions?”

“Dreams, really. And like...” Harry winces. “Dissociative fugue, I guess? It’s how he found Rachel Poole’s body.”

“Right.”

“I think it might have led him to the killer.”

Nick hums and flips through the pages of the journal again. He has that faraway look on his face that Harry knows means he’s thought of something. Harry leans forward. 

“What if he has a kid?” Nick says finally, drumming his fingers on the cover of the journal.

“Huh?”

Nick opens the journal and flips through the pages, pointing out different entries. “Look. The sippy cup. The comment about ‘the little ones’ and being busy. The stained dress and plastic spoon and singing a song because ‘he likes it’?” Nick’s speech picks up speed as he gets excited. “And all the women had a direct link with children: Patricia Ferrero lived with her sister and nephew. Helen was a nursery teacher. Poole a pediatrician. Barbara Nelson’s fiance has a daughter from a previous relationship.”

Harry’s brow furrows in amazement. “You think he’s looking for a mother?”

Nick nods enthusiastically. “I think he’s trying to replace the mother of his child. Of course no one will live up to his expectations because they will never be the woman he lost.”

Harry starts nodding in agreement, slower, thinking hard. “He probably has a family car. Something non-threatening. With a booster or baby seat, maybe.”

Nick grins. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”

They also knew he worked in construction and had been involved in fixing the pavement and street behind Patricia Ferrero’s sister’s house. The work had been done months ago, but as it had been carried out by the state there was a list of workers involved in the project available. Out of the men who fit the criteria three had young children and drove a car model aimed at families. Of these, one was a widow. 

Lt. O’Brien brings along five police officers, including Liam, to make the arrest and rescue the hostages. Harry digs his nails into his palms on the ride to the address Zayn, their techanalyst back in Quantico, had given them. Harry was surprised that it wasn’t an isolated house but a duplex; and it wasn’t as far as he had expected, given the time of Louis’ text message.

It’s 11:53 PM when they knock on the door, police men surrounding the house. 

A tall, thin man who looks older than his age opens the door in his pajamas. He frowns in confusion. “Can I help you?”

They search the house while the man’s two year old cries in a police car at having been woken up. They find absolutely nothing to connect him to the crimes. 

It’s 3 AM by the time they get back to the station and Harry’s on the verge of tears. He thinks he'll definitely take Nick up on that cigarette he was hankering for earlier. But when he suggests bumming a cigarette off one of the policemen, Nick drags Harry to a vending machine instead, insisting he needs to eat something.

“He’s had Louis for almost 36  hours,” Harry says numbly through a mouthful of salted almonds and peanuts. “He has a reason to keep the women alive.” 

The unspoken: he has no reason to keep _Louis_ alive hangs between them. 

Nick grips his shoulder. “We’ll find him. Both of them.”

And Harry knows what’s missing from that sentence too. There's no guarantee they'll find them alive.

“We must have missed something,” Harry mutters, munching furiously. “But it all _fit_.”

Nick runs his fingers through his hair, making it stand up straight. “So we go back to the drawing board. But in a few hours... after we’ve had some sleep.”

“I’m not going to be able to sleep.”

“You need to lie down a bit, at least. Clear your mind. You know coming back fresh can break a case, Harry.”

Nick wraps an arm around Harry’s shoulders and frogmarches him to an empty room, where he makes him lie down on the couch and close his eyes. 

Nick had been his mentor since Harry joined the FBI, even before he joined Azoff’s unit a year ago. Although he likes to whine about people assuming more of an age difference than there really is between them—and he’s the first one to exert himself to sully Harry’s perceived innocence—Nick gets paternal at times. Harry likes to make fun of him for it afterward, but he’s really grateful that Nick looks after him.

Harry falls into a fitful doze, waking up several times from nightmares but not remembering any of his dreams in the morning. He wakes up definitively at 6:31 AM, trudging to the coffee room for a mug of black, bitter coffee before heading to the office where he and Nick had set up base.

He sits and spins around in his chair, fighting a tension headache, and studies the whiteboard with the victim’s pictures and maps of the area marking where their bodies had been found, the dates dancing around in his head. 

Nick comes in at 7:02 AM, his hair a mess and carrying two styrofoam cups of coffee.

“Got anything?”

Harry shakes his head jerkily. 

An hour later all they have is the vague possibility of a foot print on the cement behind Patricia Ferrero’s house to match shoe size and model. 

“Any chance they had someone working off the record?” Harry asks tiredly.

Nick shrugs. “Maybe. Like, someone calling in sick and having a friend fill in but never updating the paperwork?”

“Yeah, like that.” Harry sighs. “Fuck.”

There’s a knock on the door at 8:04 AM. Liam and Niall poke their heads in when Nick calls out permission to enter. Harry’s about to greet them when his eyes fall on what Liam is holding in his hands—Louis’ journal. Harry lurches to his feet ready to wrestle it from him, but Liam is already holding it out.

“Where did you—?”

“You left it on the table. I was curious,” Liam replies without embarrassment. “You’re assisting us with the case. You’re not supposed to keep things from us.”

Nick huffs with amusement. “It’s at the FBI’s discretion what we choose to disclose. But I can already tell you we generally don’t share case sensitive information with civilians.” He raises his eyebrows, looking from Liam to Niall, who starts biting his nails.

Liam flushes, but stands his ground. “Well maybe you should trust the people you’re supposed to be working with a little more.”

“Either way stealing evidence from the FBI is a federal offense,” Nick retorts.

“That journal’s not tagged as evidence. And I doubt you want to call attention to it...” Liam doesn’t cower from Nick’s fixed stare.

“What is this? Are you seriously trying to blackmail two FBI agents?” Nick says finally in disbelief. 

Liam shakes his head. “I’m just saying. Hear us out first.”

Harry glances at Niall who looks pale but resolute. “You’ve got something?” he asks.

“Maybe.” Liam approaches the table and clears his throat. “He...he strangles them, doesn’t he?”

“If you don’t know that at this point, I don’t know how to help you,” Nick mutters. 

Liam shoots him a dirty look. “I mean, there’s stuff here"—Harry watches him with a frown as he holds up Louis’ journal  for emphasis—"about being strangled. And I... I remembered the other night I went to talk to Louis at the gas station. There was a man: white male, late thirties, maybe. Strong, coarse hands like he could work in construction.”

“So what happened?” Nick presses him, impatient.

“The moment he came inside the store Louis started coughing, like, he was _choking_ , couldn’t breathe. It stopped all of a sudden when the man left.”

Nick scoffs. “That could mean nothing at all.”

“He drove a dark blue Toyota minivan, 2017 model.”

“Which is the exact same car I caught Louis trying to get into one night like a week ago. He didn’t even realize what he was doing until I pointed it out,” Niall explains. 

Harry stares at them, unseeing, mind working fast. “I followed Louis once right up to a burned house in the outskirts of town.” He turns to Nick. “What if his wife—”

Nick’s eyes widen, understanding and excitement on his face before Harry can finish speaking. “I’ll tell Malik to search for recent fires with casualties and cross reference with registered car model and construction work.”

Liam clears his throat loudly. “You can do that. Or you can check the security footage of the gas station and the purchase records.” The corner of his mouth twitches. “He used his credit card.” 

*

Louis waits. He has nothing to help him figure out the time except his own internal clock, which is out of whack and notoriously untrustworthy. He feels feverish and lightheaded, drifting in an out of sleep or consciousness so that it’s even harder to tell the time. His throat and head hurt, but he knows the disorientation and fatigue go beyond the physical. He knows this is where he killed those women; he can feel it. Louis can’t see or hear ghosts, but he picks up pain and death, and the whole place is steeped in it.

He tries to think of something to use as a possible weapon, but there’s nothing he can think of with his head all muddled.

At some point he wakes up from his doze to find the man standing in front of him, hands on his hips, studying Louis with a line between his eyebrows.

“You’re the kid from the gas station.”

Louis struggles to sit up higher, using the wall behind him to prop himself up. His ankle is chafed from the friction of the metal cuff already. “I’m twenty-eight. Hardly a kid.”

The man is maybe ten years older than him, and Louis refuses to be patronized even if he’s going to be murdered.

The man’s grin is humorless. “How did you end up here, _kid_?”

Louis shrugs, head lolling. He feels sick. “I have no idea.”

He half expects it, but he’s nowhere near fast enough to block the backhanded blow across the face. The back of his head thumps the wall and his visions blacks out for a few seconds.

“Don’t make this difficult. You answer my questions and—”

“And you’ll kill me quick instead of slow?” Louis interrupts, smearing blood down his chin when he tries to wipe it with the back of his hand.

“You’ll find that’s a pretty good deal,” the man says, voice quiet and matter-of-fact.

It scares Louis more than if he were shouting. “I don’t know anything. I haven’t told anyone anything—because I don’t _know_ anything.”

It’s a lie and not a lie. He knows enough to know he’s not getting out of here alive.

“Then why are you here?”

“It was a mistake.” Louis realizes he’s trying to back into the wall, but he has nowhere to run.

The man nods and cracks his knuckles. “It was.”

 

Louis’ return to consciousness is gradual. His cheek is pressed to the cement and it takes a few blinks until he can see in focus again. He rolls onto his back with his teeth gritted; the pain is widespread and uniform. After a bit he manages to sit up and drag himself over to rest his back against the cot.

He’s still catching his breath when he hears rapid footsteps on the stairs; he hadn’t even heard the door.

Barbara falters when she sees him on the floor. She bites her lip and walks over to him, crouching by his side.

“I’ve got your car keys. And I know where he hid your car.” She doesn’t meet his eyes as she brings a plastic sippy cup to his lips. Louis is surprised to taste apple juice. “He’s coming down again soon, and I’m going to escape while he’s distracted with you.”

Louis chokes a little on the apple juice, the taste unpleasant mixed with the metallic tang of blood. “Makes sense. Go for it,” he rasps.

Barbara makes a sound that might have been a laugh or a sob and raises her eyes to meet Louis’. “You hold on, OK? I’ll get help. I promise.”

Louis turns his head away when she tries to get him to drink more juice, afraid he might be sick and dreading the thought of throwing up with his throat and his ribs in the state they are.

Barbara touches her fingertips to his cheek as they stare at each other for a long moment. “I’m sorry,” she whispers.

Louis quirks his lips at her. “Good luck.”

Barbara nods and rises from her crouch. Her mouth opens and closes, but she leaves without saying anything else.

 

Louis thinks it can’t be more than a half hour before the man comes back. He stomps down the stairs with his work boots.

“Ready to talk?” he asks.

Louis drags his eyes from the boots in front of him to the man’s face. He’s standing tall and Louis feels his stomach clench at the look on his face.

“I am,” he replies, and he can hear the quaver in his voice. “I just don’t know what to say, to be honest.”

The man grabs Louis’ hair, pulling his head back until his eyes are watering, keeping him still with his other hand around his throat. “Tell me what you know,” he snarls.

“I know you... killed four women. Right here... in this basement.” 

A pained cry escapes Louis when the man jerks his head back. 

“How did you find me?”

“I don’t—” It’s a reflexive reaction for Louis to claw at the man’s forearms, trying to fight him off, though his muscles feel weak and it doesn’t seem to have any effect. The blood is rushing in his temples and his chest is painfully tight. He can’t think of anything except that he can’t breathe— and he needs to buy Barbara time—and he _can’t breathe_. “I’m psychic,” he gasps.

He’s never said those words out loud; it sounds as ridiculous as he’d always feared—but it also rings true.

The pressure in his throat lets up a little. “What?” The man snorts and gives Louis another rough shake. “You’re psychic,” he says, deadpan. “You talk to ghosts or see the future or what?” 

Louis tries to answer, but his voice comes out an unintelligible croak.

“Freak.” The man kicks Louis in the side. “I knew there was something off about you.” 

“Your wife,” Louis whimpers. It’s all he gets—nothing more than that nudge. But the man’s reaction gives him the rest: his grip slackens and Louis drops back onto the floor, not quite catching himself on his elbows. “Your wife is... horrified. Heartbroken. She can’t... believe she ever married... a monster like you,” he pants, his voice hoarse and broken. “Can’t believe... you’d disrespect her memory... like this.”

The man stares down at Louis, motionless. His face twists in sudden rage and Louis flinches, but the blow never falls. There sound of a commotion outside reaches them, muffled and indistinct. 

Louis makes a desperate grab for the man’s leg when he turns around but his grip is weak and he’s left to watch as the man thunders up the stairs, the sound of the door slamming behind him following a second later as darkness settles around him.

*

The man’s name is Aaron Turner, 39. His wife had died as a result of the injuries sustained during a house fire, thought to be caused by an unattended cigarette, over a year before. That was the stressor: six months after his wife’s death he stalked and abducted, then murdered, his first victim, Helen Milton.  

It’s 8:58 AM and they’re breaking the speed limit, zooming down the long road, the pale winter sunlight and the mist of the early morning making everything hazy. Harry’s behind the wheel, white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel and shoulders tense. 

“Maybe you should have stayed behind,” Nick mutters, watching him from the passenger seat.

“Like hell,” Harry grunts. He can’t stop thinking about Louis and the women Aaron Turner had beaten and strangled and thrown by the side of the road. He puts a little more pressure on the accelerator.

It takes them almost two hours to get to the address Zayn had sent them, police cars in tow. It’s an isolated location for a house, surrounded by brush and forest. There’s a crude sandbox in front of the house and a child’s red tricycle. They had worked out the rescue operation plan with the layout of the house in mind and the knowledge of three hostages trapped inside. 

Harry is startled by Nick’s hand on his arm when he’s about to open the door of the SUV. 

“Don’t do anything stupid,” Nick says.

Harry should be offended, but he can’t fault Nick for the reminder. All he can think about is getting to Louis, getting him out of there, alive and safe, and that’s dangerous. Harry needs to be professional, he can’t put other people in danger. 

“I won’t.”

Nick gives a sharp nod. “Let’s do this.”

Harry’s slamming the car door closed behind him and pulling out his gun when a car— _Louis’_ car—comes hurtling out of the trees. 

“Freeze!” A police officer jumps in front of the car, gun raised.

Lt. O’Brien has the sense to shoot at the wheels. The tires burst and the car horn goes off in a long, deafening beep as the car comes to an abrupt, jolting stop. 

“Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot! Please.” Barbara trips out of the car, tears streaming down her face, her hands up in the air. 

Harry can make out the child in the passenger seat: Aaron’s two year old.

Nick runs over to Barbara. “Where is he?”

She’s crying so hard she can barely answer. “He’s—Basement. He’s in the basement with—”

Harry doesn’t wait to hear the rest. He dashes toward the house, gun held in front of him. He hears someone following him and recognizes Liam as well as another police officer he doesn’t know out of the corner of his eye. He signals at them to cover him, trusting Nick to cover the exits. 

He shoulders the door open after shooting the lock and steps into the house. Everything is silent as he inches down the hall. He’s all too aware that the entrance to the basement is at the back of the house, through the laundry room. 

“Clear!” 

They advance through the hall after clearing the living room and the kitchen. As he turns the corner Harry has a split second to duck the metal pipe coming at his face. He gets a punch to the stomach with the butt of a rifle and his gun is wrenched out of his hand before he tackles Turner to the ground, using his bent over position as a starting point to barrel into the man’s stomach. The rifle goes off as they hit the floor, the shot blasting a hole in the wall just over Harry’s shoulder. 

Harry can hear shouting behind him over the ringing in his ears, but he’s focused on keeping Turner down. He dodges a punch to the face and, gritting his teeth through a knee to the groin, manages to shove Turner down hard enough to make his head bounce.

“Don’t move!”

The click of a trigger rings loud in the air. Liam is standing over them, pointing his gun straight at Turner’s forehead, right between the eyes. The other police officer, also with her gun trained on Turner, steps forward with handcuffs. Harry scrambles to his feet and rolls Turner around, pinning him down with a knee to his back while he handcuffs him. 

“He’s all yours,” he tells Liam as he retrieves his gun. 

Liam and the other officer shove Turner down the hall. Harry is already moving toward the back of the house when he hears a shot and the whack of a door hitting a wall. He runs down the hall to find Nick and Lt. O’Brien in the laundry room, having come in through a window from the backyard, standing in front of a smoking lock and an open door. 

“Do you want me to go down first?” Nick asks, putting his gun away.

Harry bites his lip, digging his nails into his palms. They don’t know if Louis is alive. He thinks of finding his body down there and bile rises to his throat, but after a moment he shakes his head and steps in front of Nick. He fumbles for the light switch at the top of the stairs and goes down slowly. 

He sees a smear of blood on the cement before he sees Louis, in a heap on the cement floor like he’d fallen and couldn’t get up... or like he couldn’t get up because he was... Harry claps a hand over his mouth like that will stop him from throwing up.

Louis’ eyes open and flit around, unfocused, before finding their way to Harry.  

“Oh my god,” Harry breathes out. 

Louis blinks at him, his face blank. Then his eyes go wide and he struggles to sit up. He’s shivering and bruised and bloody, and Harry rushes to kneel at his side, his heart in his throat.

“Louis. Fuck. _Louis._ You’re all right,” Harry groans, struggling not to touch, unsure if he will be welcome, his hands in fists at his sides, staring at Louis helplessly.

Louis looks at him for a long moment, his expression unreadable, before shuffling the tiniest bit closer to Harry. Harry keeps himself still as Louis leans closer—he has the distinct impression that Louis is smelling him. It might have been a minute or an hour, but the knot in Harry’s stomach loosens when Louis rests his cheek against Harry’s shoulder, nose pressed to the base of his neck. Harry tentatively puts his arms around him. 

“Louis,” he repeats, softly, against the side of Louis’ head. Louis smells like sweat and blood and dust, but Harry has the urge to breathe him in, to savor every evidence of his being alive. 

“Is she alright? Barbara?” Louis mumbles, almost inaudible. Harry almost misses it except he feels his jaw and mouth moving against his shoulder and neck.

“Yes. She’s all right.”

He has to guess at what Louis asks next, the sound weak and inarticulate.

“We got him. You’re safe, Lou. It’s over.” 

Harry pulls him in against his chest, holding him closer, and Louis curls the fingers of one hand in the hem of Harry’s shirt that peeks out under his Kevlar vest.  
Harry listens to Louis breathing, in and out, in and out, a little wheezy and congested.  He doesn’t want to bother him, but he feels frantic with anxiety at Louis’ silence and worried sick at not knowing the extent of his injuries, so he pulls back a little so he can look into his face, cradling his head gently. “There’s an ambulance coming, Lou. You’re going to be all right. You’re going to be fine.”

Louis gives him a weak, strained smile, but doesn’t say anything.

He makes a faint, tired sound when Harry settles him against his chest again.  

“You’re OK,” Harry whispers, tears stinging his eyes, biting back a sob. “You’re going to be fine.”


	3. Chapter 3

Louis has hated hospitals since he was a child. He didn’t understand why he felt sicker at the hospital than anything that could happen to him outside of it could make him feel. Now he still doesn’t understand, but he can guess.

He’s anxious to leave after receiving the all-clear from the doctor—albeit with instructions to keep track of any changes in his condition and to make a follow-up appointment for the following week—which is why he appreciates Liam’s straightforward method of taking a statement. In spite of the peculiarities surrounding his involvement in the case, Liam manages to get down the basics without revealing anything incriminating.

Louis lets out a sigh when Liam puts down his pen and sets the clipboard on his lap. He wraps Niall’s zip-up hoodie tighter around himself; he’s in scrubs, his soiled clothes in a plastic bag on the bed next to him.

“Niall’s taking me home… you don’t have to stay,” he tells Liam when he makes no move to leave.

“I’m sorry,” Liam replies—blurts out, really.

Louis is a bit taken aback. “For what?”

Liam leans forward, eyes wide and contrite. “For not trusting you—”

Louis rolls his eyes. “You shouldn’t be. You were right, weren’t you? Your instincts were good—they say that’s important for an FBI agent.”

Liam flushes and gapes at him. “How do you—? Oh, right.”

Louis lets out a huff of laughter then winces at the pain in his throat. “That’s me using my brain, not my… _powers_ ,” he says, voice croaky.

Liam makes a face, but then goes serious. “But, honestly, Louis, I’m sorry. For how I treated you.”

He sounds dreadfully earnest, almost tragic, and it makes Louis want to keep poking fun at him. “Scared I’ll put a curse on you, are you?”

Liam stares at him, deadpan. “No. Idiot. I’m being serious, here. It was wrong of me—whether you were hiding something or not, I wasn’t fair to you.”

Louis studies Liam, with his careful haircut and his big, brown eyes fixed on his, open and unflinching. “OK,” he says finally.

“OK?” Liam blinks in surprise. “So we’re OK?” he asks tentatively.

Louis starts to nod then stops because it makes his neck hurt, but he closes his eyes slowly in agreement and offers his hand for Liam to shake. He doesn’t know if Liam understands the significance of that action, but the gentleness of his handshake and the warmth in his eyes makes Louis think that maybe he has an inkling.

 

He’s only been waiting for a few minutes when Niall pops his head at the door.

“Ready to go?” he asks with a grin. “I got the van parked out front.”

Louis looks down at the wheelchair Niall is pushing in front of him and raises an eyebrow. “I can walk, Niall.”

“But why would you if you don’t have to?” Niall waggles his eyebrows. “C’mon, jump up.”

A small smile plays around Louis’ mouth as Niall helps him off the bed and onto the wheelchair.

Louis raises an arm and points out at the hall. “Onward, serf!” he calls out with mock imperiousness. His voice cracks in the middle and he swats at a cackling Niall who hurries to get behind the chair.

Niall turns on the radio in the van and they sit in companionable silence on the drive to Louis’ apartment. Louis can walk but he doesn’t turn down Niall’s supporting arm on the climb up the stairs to his apartment.

Niall insists on helping him get comfortable on the couch, even though Louis tells him there’s no need.

“Thanks, Ni—”

Niall cuts him off. “Be right back. Got the groceries in the van.”

Louis is left staring at the open front door while Niall rushes off. He comes back with two bags of groceries.

Louis follows him to the kitchen, open-mouthed and frozen in place while Niall puts everything away. There are even fresh vegetables.

“I… um. I actually talked your landlord into letting me into your apartment when you went missing. I saw you didn’t have much in the way of actual food. Have you been living off cereal or what?” Niall says, a little rushed and half-laughing, revealing his nerves.

Louis has no idea what he’s done to deserve him.

“You know,” he blurts out. “About me.”

Niall seems thrown by the change of topic. “Yeah?”

“No comments?”

Niall shrugs. “You’re my friend,” he says simply.

Louis twists his fingers inside the pockets of Niall’s hoodie. “ _You’re_ my friend—I’m a pretty shit friend to you.”

“A bit,” Niall agrees with a slight smile. “But not how you’re thinking. Just… friends trust each other, you know? I understand... but I wish you’d trusted me.”

Louis can feel his heartbeat pounding with his hands pressed tight against his stomach. “So if I’d told you I have… _psychic powers_ , you would have…”

“I'd have thought maybe you weren’t quite right in the head,” Niall replies promptly.  
  
Louis blinks at him.

“But I already thought that, is the thing.” Niall laughs and Louis feels a smile creeping onto his face.

“And it didn’t matter. Of course it doesn’t matter. And after sleeping on it, and talking about it some more over beers, I would have started thinking about how to help you if you needed help.” Niall walks over to Louis and pulls his hands out of his pockets, firm but gentle. “I would have been there for you, Louis.”

Louis lets Niall hold his hands, too preoccupied fighting the lump in his throat. “You were. You are. Here. You’re here.”

Niall grins. “There you go, then.” His grin eases into something soft and sincere. “It doesn’t make a difference that I know, except that now you don’t have to hide anymore. And I’m sorry if I ever made you think you had to.”

“You didn’t,” Louis says quickly. “You’re the first person I’ve wanted to tell in ages, Niall.” He wipes at his eyes with the back of a hand. “Thank you.”

Niall pulls him into a hug. “Love you, buddy.”

The hug is a little too tight for Louis’ bruised body, but Louis wouldn’t think of pulling back.

 

Exhaustion hits him once Niall is gone. He lingers in the shower, scrubbing too hard over the bruises, half expecting them to wash off.

When he was a younger he used to hold back his tears until the evening, when he’d slip into the shower while his mother put his siblings to bed so he could cry away from her prying and fretting.

When he was seventeen, a few months before he got sent to the psychiatric hospital, his younger sister Felicité had come up to him one afternoon and told him she could hear him in the shower. Louis had brushed her off, telling himself she was pretending so as to make fun of him for wanking or something equally childish—she was only nine, after all. Except that was not like Fizzy at all, and one night a few weeks after that she’d got into his bed in the middle of the night and begged him to talk to her. Louis had rubbed her back until she stopped crying and held her while she slept.

After he left home, he no longer had to hide when he cried, but he never quite feels as free to let out his feelings as in the shower.  
  
He’s beyond tired when he leaves the bathroom, aching and drained. It’s 7:38 PM.

Harry’s hoodie is starting to smell more like him than like Harry, but there’s enough of his scent that Louis gets comfort out of using is as a pillow. He can see Harry, wet eyes trained on Louis the whole while the EMTs were seeing to him. He stood at Louis’ side—knuckles pressed to Louis’ arm as though he couldn’t bear not to be touching him—until the ambulance took off.

Louis sleeps the night through and doesn’t dream.

 

It’s disconcerting to wake up in the morning instead of in the evening, feeling refreshed even though he’s sore. He sits in the couch to have his cereal and watches cartoons; it would almost feel normal if it weren’t for the bruises peeking out from under his sleeves.

When he checks his phone there are a series of texts from Harry from the night before.

**9:45 PM At the hotel, at last. Still some paperwork to look forward to, but case officially closed.**

Louis imagines the paperwork must be especially tricky for this case, given the circumstances. He has no clue what Harry and his partner will come up with to make sense of the whole thing.

 **9:47 PM I talked to Niall / you should have let him stay with you**  
  
**9:50 PM remember to take your painkillers with food / I hope you’re not in too much pain**  
  
**9:55 PM I shouldn’t have left you. Nick could have handled it**  
  
**10:01 PM is it all right if I come over?**  
  
**10:03 PM tomorrow I mean**  
  
**10:04 PM I’d go over now if you wanted me to**  
  
**10:21 PM sleep well**  
  
Louis heats up a can of soup for lunch. Niall offers to join him, but Louis tells him the truth, which is that he needs some time alone. He doesn’t know why he says that when he’s spent enough time alone for a lifetime. When the knock comes at 1:12 PM he wonders if that’s the reason why.

It’s odd to see Harry out of his suit, in a soft wool jumper and faded skinny jeans, with his coat unbuttoned and his hair windswept, cheeks flushed like he took the stairs at a run.

Harry is suddenly bashful in front of Louis, staring at him with wide eyes and his mouth struggling to shape words. “I should have called,” he says after a minute.

Louis shakes his head, feeling a little shy himself. “I read your texts. I didn’t tell you not to come.”

“You didn’t tell me to come either.”

That’s not something Louis thinks he’ll ever be able to do, but he doesn’t say that out loud.

Harry ducks his head and runs his fingers through his hair, shuffling his feet.

“Come inside,” Louis says. “Have you eaten? You want a beer?”

Harry follows him, closing the door carefully behind him. “Yeah. I’m OK, but a beer would be nice, thanks.”

Louis takes a bottle out of the fridge for Harry, but gets a soda for himself. “I’m not supposed to have alcohol with painkillers,” he explains though Harry didn’t ask. Not that he’s minded before, but he wants to have his head clear for this.

They settle on the couch, Louis at one end with his legs crossed, facing Harry who sits at the edge of the seat with both feet planted on the ground, elbows on his knees, head down.

“How are you?” Harry asks at last, turning his head to look at Louis.

Louis shrugs. “Everything hurts. But I’m…” He’s about to say 'fine' but the word sticks in his throat. He’s not fine. Not really. “I don’t know. I feel kind of numb, I guess,” he admits.

Harry nods thoughtfully, body angling toward Louis. “It can take some time to process something like what you went through. It’s normal.”

That makes Louis smile wryly. “At least there’s that. I’m processing trauma normally.”  
  
Harry’s gaze is gentle. “I’m sorry,” he says, voice low.

Louis raises his eyes to the ceiling. “Why does everyone keep apologizing to me?”

“Who’s apologizing to you?” Harry asks in confusion, brow furrowing.

Louis’ lips twitch. “You’re getting derailed, Harry. Why are you apologizing?”

Harry turns to face Louis with his whole body, his voice shakes when he speaks. “I… I should have listened to you. I should have seen how scared you were, and that I was just making it worse by pushing you like that. And you’re right: it wasn’t fair to you. And I keep thinking maybe showing you the case file made you drive up there. I keep thinking I… I put you in danger, and that’s the last thing—”

Louis can’t… It hadn’t even crossed his mind that Harry might apologize. “You’re not thinking like an FBI agent. Whatever happened, this led to you catching the killer, didn’t it? The rest doesn’t matter.”

Harry shakes his head from side to side emphatically. “This isn’t Agent Styles speaking, it’s Harry. And it does matter. _You_ matter.”

Louis takes a deep breath, trying to calm the fluttering in his chest. “I’m not sorry.”

He meets Harry’s confused frown. The thought hadn’t occurred to him until this moment, but now he knows it’s absolutely true. “My being there let Barbara escape. Even if you hadn’t shown up she would have got away. It would have been worth it.”

“You saved her.”

“Well. She saved herself... but she did use my car,” Louis rasps with the shadow of a smile.

Harry mirrors his smile, except his is deeper. “You’re amazing.”

Louis rolls his eyes. “I’m not. I can’t control any of it. And if I wasn’t so scared of it... I could do more.”

“I don’t mean that. I mean you. Besides all that. Just you, Lou.”

Louis shakes his head ‘no’ automatically. Harry doesn’t press, but reaches for his coat and fishes Louis’ journal from an inside pocket. “I wanted to give this back.”

Louis hesitates, then quickly takes the journal from him. Their fingers brush, but Harry’s touch has never sparked anything but warmth.

“I’ve got more, you know?” Louis whispers. “Years worth.” He bites his lip. “I was thinking maybe… maybe there’s something useful in there?”

It takes Harry a moment to answer. “Maybe I can get someone to look at them?” he says slowly, carefully.

“The FBI has people for that, do they?” Louis isn’t sure if he’s meant to be joking or not, but Harry just nods, matter of fact.

Louis twists his fingers in his lap. “But they won’t… they won’t come after me?”

He can blame the tremor in his voice on his bruised larynx.

“They won’t ask questions. Nobody will bother you, I promise,” Harry assures him. “I’ve got you, Lou.”

Louis manages a tiny smile. But he can’t do this. He can see in Harry’s eyes what he wants: in the way his eyes flit to Louis’ lips; in the hand that inches toward Louis’ foot, just grazing his toes as though he’s aching to touch, to comfort. And Louis wants it too. So much. But he can’t.

“I’ve got something of yours,” he blurts out, jumping to his feet, wincing at the pull of bruised muscles, before darting off to his bedroom. He hesitates in front of the bed, staring at Harry’s hoodie mixed in the mess of his sheets. The smell will be gone soon enough and all it will be then will be a painful reminder: he has to let it go.

“Louis—”

Louis jumps, heartbeat racing; he hadn’t expected Harry to follow him. Harry appears to be frozen, standing just outside the door, his eyes fixed on Louis’ bed and the green hoodie sticking out between Louis’ grey sheets.

Louis bites his lip, blushing. “Your scent,” he admits. “It… it helps me sleep better.”

Harry gapes at him for a breath, the intensity in his eyes making Louis face heat up further. Then Harry is right in front of him, tilting Louis’ chin up and kissing him. Just for an instant before he pulls back, looking into Louis’ eyes as he cradles his jaw in his palm. “Is this OK?” he asks.

And it’s not. It’s really not. But Louis wants it so much. He rises on his tiptoes, seeking Harry’s lips. “Please,” he whimpers.

Harry smooths his thumb over Louis’ cheekbones while they kiss, lips moving against each other, gentle and exploring. Louis clutches at Harry’s forearms, fingers digging into the muscle. He’s never felt as grounded as he does at this moment.

He pushes Harry until the back of his knees hit the edge of the bed. Harry flops backward onto the bed, legs hanging off the edge, and Louis crawls over him to sit on his stomach. Instead of just smelling he can taste now: the hollow at the base of his throat, the sharp angle of his jaw, his mouth, over and over again.

Without disconnecting his mouth from Harry’s neck he tugs at the hem of Harry’s jumper, knuckles skimming over the warm skin of his belly.

“Louis. Lou, wait—” Harry stops him by closing his fingers around Louis’ wrists loosely.

Louis stiffens and sits up. “Don’t you want to? I thought—” His voice breaks. He’s such an idiot. “I thought you wanted me.”

Harry tugs him down to kiss him again, ever so lightly. “I do want you. But I don’t think we should do this right now.”

Louis looks down at him, eyes stinging. “Why?”

Harry succeeds in getting Louis to lie down half on top of him, snug in the cradle of his arm. “Because you’re covered in bruises and I don’t want to hurt you. Because I’m not sure if you want this because you want it, or if you just want to stop feeling numb. Because I’m falling in love with you and I don’t want you to regret this.”

Louis breathes in and out for long seconds, shocked. He feels Harry kiss the top of his head, while stroking his back and arm gently.

He sighs and wraps an arm around Harry’s waist, fisting his jumper. He’s not sure how to respond: ‘I know you’ll be gentle with me.’ ‘I kind of want it to hurt, though—I want your bruises to cover his.’ ‘I want this. But I also want to escape.’ ‘I could never regret you.’

“You shouldn’t fall in love with me,” he murmurs in the end, so quietly he’s not sure if he’s even said it out loud.

“You make it very hard not to,” Harry whispers. “And I wouldn’t stop if I could.”

Louis kisses Harry’s neck where it’s exposed over the collar of his jumper. “I want you to love me,” he confesses, voice trembling.

Harry brings him impossibly closer. “I want you to let me love you.”

Louis can’t say anything over the lump in his throat. Even though he’d slept more than he had in weeks the night before he finds himself drifting off. He feels safe, the steady rhythm of Harry’s breathing more soothing than Grieg.

 

Harry makes dinner after he wakes up from his nap. Louis hasn’t sat at the kitchen table to eat in... maybe ever. But in the time Louis stretched out and got out of bed, Harry cleared the table and even scrounged up some wilting flowers that Louis suspects he stole from the next-door neighbor’s balcony.

“Is it good?” Harry asks, his tight grip on the fork betraying his nervousness.

Louis would have been affected if Harry had whipped up some sandwiches, he can hardly wrap his head around the meal he’s prepared.

“It’s delicious. Where did you learn to cook like this?”

Harry’s posture relaxes and he continues eating with a smile on his face. “My mum. When I was a kid I wanted to be a chef, actually.”

Louis considers Harry through a mouthful of potatoes. “I can see that: an apron instead of a Kevlar vest...”

"A brulee torch instead of a Glock...” Harry jumps in on the joke.

Louis finds himself grinning back as he spears a bit of broccoli on his fork.

“What about you?” Harry asks. “What did you want to be when you were a kid?”

“A pianist,” Louis replies without hesitation. “But I wasn’t good enough.”

Harry opens his mouth to protest, but Louis cuts him off. “No, Harry. That’s a fact. But I made my peace with it. I still enjoy playing even if I can’t make a living out of it.” His mouth twists in a bit of dark humor. “It wouldn’t be fair for _all_ my dreams to come true, would it?”

Although Harry’s lips quirk dutifully, the light in his eyes is dimmed. Louis nudges him with his foot under the table and Harry perks up a bit.

“Your sleep seemed peaceful before,” Harry says with a questioning, hopeful lilt to his voice.

“It was.” Some of the best sleep he’s had in years. Louis pretends to be preoccupied with his food, his face hot. “I told you—”

“My scent,” Harry finishes for him, between teasing and awed. He presses his knee against Louis’ thigh under the table and holds his gaze, earnest and intense. “I’m so happy I can bring you some peace.”

It takes a huge effort for Louis to break their eye contact. “When do you leave?” he asks quietly. He has to ask.

“I was supposed to leave tomorrow, but I told Nick I was taking a few days.”

Louis’ head whips up and he cringes at the crick in his neck. “You don’t have to do that.”

“I want to,” Harry says simply.

Louis drums his fingers on the tabletop, head down. “Are you staying at the hotel?”

“They told me the room is free if I need it,” Harry says vaguely.

Louis worries at his bottom lip for a moment then blurts out, “Tell them you don’t need it.”

Harry’s whole face brightens and he drags his chair closer to Louis—close enough to brush their lips together, butter soft. “Are you sure?” he asks.

Louis brushes his thumb over Harry’s dimple, lingers to explore the texture of his scarce stubble. “If I change my mind I’ll kick you to the curb. No worries.”

Harry lets out a delighted cackle. “I can live with that.”

*

They have five days together before Harry has to go back to Quantico.

They watch television, and play Scrabble and video games, and talk, and laugh like Louis had forgotten was even possible. And sometimes they just lie in bed together in silence while Louis times his breathing with the rise and fall of Harry’s chest until he falls asleep—his sleep is quiet and restful with Harry at his side.

The last night Louis plays piano for Harry.

He plays with his back to Harry who sits on the couch at Louis’ request. Louis can hear him breathing between the notes as he plays snippets of concertos and short exercises, slipping into a bit of melody of Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty. He feels the shift in the air when Harry gets up to join him on the piano bench.

Harry rests his head on Louis’ shoulder, not heavily enough to stop Louis playing. “Come back with me. What’s holding you here?”

Louis doesn’t answer, but he falters and misses a note.

“Come with me,” Harry repeats.

The last, clear note Louis plays rings for a split second before silence settles, broken by the sound of shifting fabric and the wet drag of their lips moving against each other.

“Are you going to reject me again?” Louis asks, fingers scratching at Harry’s scalp at the base of his head, his arms around his neck.

“It wasn’t like that,” Harry whines, leaning into his touch.

Louis knows it wasn’t and he knows Harry was right to put a stop to it. He can admit to himself that a part of him had been relieved, and he’d been more than content to spend his time with Harry as they had. But he has no idea what will happen once Harry leaves, and, although he’s nervous, the idea of never getting to be with Harry intimately is scarier.

“I know.” He kisses up Harry’s neck until he’s whispering in his ear, letting his lips brush against the sensitive skin. “But there’s no reason not to do it now.”

Harry groans when Louis traces the shell of his ear with his tongue. He clutches at Louis’ sides under his jumper and shirt, making him break out in goosebumps, and buries his face against Louis’ neck. “You have no idea how much I want you.”

Louis slips a hand between their bodies to palm Harry’s crotch, where he can feel the heat and hardness of Harry’s arousal. “I’ve got some idea.”

Louis presses a last kiss to the corner of Harry’s mouth and stands up, stopping Harry from getting up with a hand on his chest. “Give me a minute?”

Harry’s face scrunches up in confusion but he nods immediately. “Of course. Whatever you need, Lou.”

Louis heads over to his bedroom. He retrieves a bottle of lube from the drawer and places it on the bedside table, then he undresses down to his pants and lies down, kicking the covers down to the foot of the bed. He rests his hands over his stomach and takes a deep breath, keeping his eyes closed, his heart racing in a mixture of desire and nerves.

The scratch in his throat when he starts to call for Harry reminds him he can’t shout loud enough for Harry to hear him in the living room. He curses under his breath, but before he can talk himself into going back out to get Harry, there’s a knock on the door. Louis lifts himself up on his elbows to find Harry standing with a hand still raised against the door, which Louis left open.

Harry’s lips are parted as he stares at Louis, tongue flicking out to wet them. There’s no mistaking the look on his face as anything but awe, although Louis can’t understand it—five days of Harry’s cooking hasn’t done much to fill him out, and he’s winter pale and his skin is littered with mottled bruises and he’s twitchy with nerves and... and he can’t understand how Harry wants him.

“Can I—?” Harry croaks.

“Yeah.”

Harry steps into the room after closing the door behind him after a questioning glance in Louis’ direction, then stops. He stands in place with one hand raised to his mouth, biting down on one of his fingers, and the other fisting the material at the bottom of his shirt, tugging at it distractedly.

Louis feels a slight, tremulous smile creep onto his face. “Harry? Want to maybe join me... on the bed?”

Harry lets out a breath of laughter, flushing. “Yeah. Sorry. You’re just—” He trails off while he struggles out of his tee shirt and steps out of his joggers and pants.

Heat runs down Louis’ body as he takes in Harry: he looks broader naked, wide shoulders and muscled chest paired with a trim waist and long, lean legs.  
His cock is half hard and big enough that it takes Harry clearing his throat to break Louis out of his reverie and look up. Harry has a slight grin on his face as he walks over to sit on the edge of the bed.

“So... not overcompensating with that monstrosity of an SUV.”

Harry lets out a squawk of laughter. “I’m packing,” he snorts, then hides his grin against Louis’ middle.

Louis cards his fingers Harry’s short curls, giggling. “That was terrible, Harry.”

Harry blows a raspberry out loud and then another one on Louis’ stomach, making Louis squirm and burst into another bout of giggles. He shoots Louis a smug, delighted grin before moving up his body, pressing wet kisses the length of his chest while keeping Louis still with a hand on his hip.

He plants a last kiss in the hollow of Louis’ throat before sitting up, his lips curved in a relaxed, undemanding smile. He keeps a hand spread on Louis’ hip, his thumb rubbing soothing circles.

Louis focuses on just breathing for a long moment. Although he’s no longer shaking with tension, he’s still nervous. It’s embarrassing, feeling like he needs Harry to hold his hand through it, but it’s been so long and the fear that it will all go wrong at some point is still stuck in the back of his head.

“I—” Louis tries, but his throat closes up before he can get anything else out.

Harry bites his lip, looking thoughtful. After a minute, he curls his fingers in the waistband of Louis’ pants. “Can I take these off? Is that all right?”

Louis nods.

Harry climbs onto the bed, on his knees bracketing Louis’ legs. Louis lifts his hips up so Harry can pull his pants over his ass, then he bends his knees up, bracing himself with one foot on Harry’s thigh, and tugs them off the rest of the way himself. He’s left  lying on his back with his knees up, blocking himself from Harry’s view and touch.

Harry cups Louis’ knees and peers at him over them with a worried line between his eyebrows.

“Lou...” he says quietly. “We don’t have to do anything if you don’t want to. Not now, not ever.”

Louis had let drop that he hadn’t been with anyone in some time, but he hadn’t expanded on that. He thinks now it’s a conversation they probably should have had before they got into bed.

“I want to,” Louis says quickly, voice shaking. “But I need you to...”

Harry bends down to give his knee a small, encouraging kiss. “What do you need?”

Louis takes a deep breath and forces himself to explain.

“I... I get, like, um, overwhelmed? When I have sex.” Louis alternates between staring at his knees and glancing at Harry’s face to gauge his reaction. “It’s—I can’t, like, keep out the _negative energies_ or something?”

Harry’s expression is attentive and thoughtful. “Is there anything I can do?” he asks. “I don’t—I want to make you feel good. I don’t want it to be... unpleasant for you.”

Louis finds Harry’s hand on his knee and laces their fingers together. “I’ve never got anything bad from you. But I’m—Last time was... bad. And I’m... I’m still—”  
He’s still scared.

Harry bends down to bring their entwined hands to his lips, kissing Louis’ knuckles. “It’s not going to be like last time.”

Louis nods. He knows it’s not. He’s home, to begin with, which is a safe place. And he’s with Harry. “I know. But I need you to—Can we—” He breaks off, abruptly on the verge of tears. He wants Harry so much and he’s ruining it—he’d understand if Harry just called the whole thing off right now.

Harry considers him for a long moment, brow furrowed, pressing absent kisses to the back of Louis’ hand. “We’ll go slow. And we can stop anytime.” His voice is soothing, so gentle Louis wants to cry for an entirely different reason than a minute ago. “I’ve got you, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Harry exerts pressure with his thumbs on the side of Louis’ knees, inviting him to spread his legs.

Louis’ breath leaves him in a stuttering exhalation when Harry smooths his hands down the inside of his thighs.

“Can I suck you?” Harry asks, bending down to nuzzle in the crease of his thigh and groin.

“I’ll come in two minutes,” Louis admits, not quite managing a huff of laughter.

Harry hums, mouthing at the base of Louis’ cock. “That’s fine.”

Louis had gone soft while they talked, but he gets hard embarrassingly fast with Harry’s mouth on his cock. Harry licks up the shaft, tongue flat, and suckles the head, his eyes closed in undeniable pleasure.

Louis hesitantly reaches down to tangle his fingers in Harry’s thick hair. Harry hums again, the vibrations around his cock making Louis’ toes curl. Harry takes him down farther while he massages his balls with one hand, the other splayed on Louis’ inner thigh, keeping his legs open.

“Harry,” Louis gasps, already feeling the heat rushing up his legs and the tightness in his groin.

Harry bobs his head a few times, then pulls back to concentrate on the head of his cock, sucking until Louis comes into his mouth with a cry.

Louis’ ears are ringing when Harry finally lifts his head from between Louis’ legs, lips and chin glistening.

“Good?” Harry asks, wiping his face with the back of his hand.

Louis closes his eyes, dropping his head back against the pillow, breathing hard. It was good. Very good. He feels good. “Come here,” he says without opening his eyes, making grabby hands in the air.

He expected Harry to get on top of him, but Harry moves to lie down beside Louis instead, one hand tentatively settling on Louis’ stomach, where he can probably feel the fluttering of his heart.

Louis turns his head, eyes still closed. “Kiss me?”

He doesn’t have to ask twice. Raised on one elbow, Harry leans in immediately to bring their lips together.

And there’s so much that Louis can’t verbalize right now, but he tries to tell Harry without words, rolling onto his side and cupping Harry’s cheeks to deepen the kiss. He slips a leg between Harry’s and pulls him closer, feeling Harry’s hard cock against his thigh.

Louis trails his fingers down the side of Harry’s neck and runs the back of his knuckles down his chest before reaching between his legs.

Harry moans, lips slipping and ending up against Louis’ chin when Louis traces two fingers up the underside of his cock in a light, maddening touch.

Louis pushes Harry to lie flat and sits up, straddling Harry’s thighs after stretching to reach the bottle of lube on the bedside table. Harry looks up at Louis with his mouth open, hands fisting the sheets at either side of his body.

“Shit, Lou.”

Louis jerks him off with slow, tight tugs, using both hands, fingers locked together with his thumbs facing upward to stimulate the head. Harry doesn’t take his eyes off Louis, flitting between his hands on his cock and his face.

Louis is getting hard again, watching Harry’s abdominal muscles twitch and his pink, bottom lip as he bites down on it to stifle his groans.

“Wait, Louis—” Harry raises himself on his elbows and bucks his hips—he doesn’t have enough leverage to destabilize Louis, but it gets the message across. “Come here, let me kiss you.”

Louis frowns in confusion but gets up on his knees and shuffles forward. His breath hitches when he feels Harry’s wet cock slide against his own cock, then behind his balls and over his hole.

Harry’s hands come up to cradle his hips when Louis sits on his stomach after a lazy kiss. “You want to go again?” he asks, motioning with his chin at Louis’ hard cock. “What do you want, baby? I’ll give you whatever you want.”

His voice is deep and a little breathless, his fingers digging into the hollows of Louis’ hipbones.

Louis swallows thickly but doesn’t hesitate for long. “Want you,” he breathes.

Harry’s hands slide back to grip his ass. “Yeah?” he asks, voice quavering.

Louis rubs his palms over Harry’s chest, catching on his nipples, before hooking his hands around Harry’s shoulders. “Want you,” he repeats.

It’s been good so far. So good. And he doesn’t know if he’ll get another chance after tonight. Harry might change his mind once he’s back in his normal life, and Louis wants everything Harry is willing to give him while he’s here.

Harry nods frantically, squeezing Louis’ ass again, spreading his cheeks apart, the tips of his fingers teasing at Louis’ hole.

Louis gropes for the bottle of lube and flicks the cap open, meaning to squirt some onto his own fingers, but Harry takes it from him.

“I want to do it,” he says quickly. Then he bites his lip and rubs Louis’ knee. “Can I? Is that OK?”

“Please,” Louis finds himself saying.

Harry tugs Louis down with one hand on the back of his neck so that Louis is braced on his forearms, with his knees at either side of Harry’s body. Harry reaches between Louis’ legs with wet fingers to circles his hole even as he sucks and nips at Louis’ neck. Louis is sensitive, neck still tender with just fading bruises, and he whines and pulls back.

“Sorry, sorry,” Harry mutters, fingers still petting Louis’ hole absently. “Fuck, sorry.”

Louis shakes his head and kisses him to stop him apologizing.

Harry pushes in a first finger, taking it slow, waiting until there’s no resistance to squeeze in a second. Louis gasps at the stretch and buries his face in the crook of Harry’s neck. Harry’s scent is stronger than ever, his skin hot and damp with sweat, and his fingers feel so good, twisting in and out of him, while he murmurs praise into Louis’ hair. Louis wants this forever.

“Harry,” he whimpers when Harry works in three fingers. The angle doesn’t let Harry go very deep, but Louis’ cock is rubbing against Harry’s stomach almost constantly, and his eyes are threatening to water with how good it is.

“I want you on your back. Is that OK?” Harry pants, fingers stilling inside of Louis and stroking Louis’ hair to encourage him to lift his head.

Louis raises himself up, sitting back on Harry’s fingers, sinking down slowly.

Harry lets out a broken moan. “Fuck, Louis. _Louis_.”

Louis fucks himself on Harry’s fingers, eyes squeezed shut. He feels almost dizzy, oversensitized. And he knows he’s reaching that state where he’s vulnerable and exposed, but he doesn’t want to stop. He’s scared again, but he doesn’t want to stop.

“Lou?” Harry squeezes his waist with one hand.

Louis lifts himself up off Harry’s fingers with a slight wince and lies back against the pillows, stretching his legs out in front of him, his knees sore.

Harry sits up, shaking out his wrist. “Louis, are you all right? D’you want to stop?” he asks urgently, even though his cock is so hard it looks painful, flushed and leaking.

Louis shakes his head. “No. Want you, Harry.”

Harry licks his lips. “Let me—I have condoms in my suitcase.”

Louis shivers when Harry gets off the bed, suddenly cold. He watches Harry’s back as he rifles in his suitcase, quickly finding a packet. Harry opens the wrapper as he walks back to the bed, and he pauses, one knee already on the bed, to slide the condom down his cock, taking a moment to squeeze the base.

Louis’ heart is at his throat, half expecting that when Harry touches him again it will all go to hell. He still spreads his legs when Harry crawls up from the foot of the bed.

“You’re so gorgeous,” Harry mumbles, pouring a bit more lube onto his fingers.

He spreads some over the condom, and then his hand is between Louis’ legs again, a fleeting touch to his hole, fingertips slipping in and out. And there’s nothing. Nothing but pleasure, and anticipation of more pleasure.

Harry guides Louis’ legs around his waist, and Louis tilts his hips up as Harry guides his cock to Louis’ hole.

“Louis. Lou. Fuck—” Harry breaks off into a string of ‘fucks’ as he pushes inside, and Louis forgets how to breathe for a split second when Harry is all the way in.

He cries out when Harry starts to move, scratching down his back. “ _Harry_.”

It’s good. It’s so good. Harry filling him up, stretching him open, hands and words reverential as he fucks Louis, building up a rhythm, chest flushed and heaving.

“Gonna come,” Louis whimpers, almost surprised.

Harry’s hips falter. “Gonna come on my cock, baby?” he moans, pushing in deep and staying there, rocking his hips while barely pulling out, hands spread on Louis’ lower back, keeping his pelvis raised.

Louis’ face scrunches up when he comes, spilling over his stomach and up his chest, clutching at Harry’s shoulders and tightening his thighs around Harry’s waist.

Harry follows him a moment later, coming with a shuddering, drawn out moan, hips bucking spasmodically.

Harry kisses him once before he pulls out, and then again after. Louis finds himself smiling into the kiss, making Harry draw back to look into his face with a tentative smile of his own.

“How are you?” Harry asks.

Louis tugs on a bit of Harry’s hair flopping over his forehead. “Good. It was good.”

Harry’s smile widens. “Just good?” he says in mock offense.

Louis giggles. He feels giddy. “Very good.”

Harry laughs happily. “It was amazing. You’re amazing.” His voice lowers and he brushes their lips together again. “Thank you for trusting me.”

Louis just opens his arms for a hug. Harry hugs him close, even though he’s getting come all over himself, and waits until Louis finally pushes him away to head over to the bathroom.

Louis has a satisfying ache in places he hasn’t had in a while, and he feels drowsy and content at the same time—which has not been a frequent combination for him. Everything feels... He feels present and safe. The feelings only intensify when Harry comes back into the room, with a hand towel to clean Louis up.

“Thank you,” Louis whispers against Harry’s nape once they’ve settled in to sleep.

Harry snuffles, interlocking their fingers together over his chest and giving Louis’ hand a squeeze. He makes a small sound of protest, already half asleep, and Louis doesn’t press. He kisses the vertebra at the top of his spine and breathes in deep and goes to sleep in no time at all.

 

Harry has a flight early the next morning. Louis had meant to set an alarm, but it had slipped his mind. He wakes up as Harry is putting on his shoes, sitting at the foot of the bed.

“Why didn’t you wake me?” Louis mumbles, blinking blearily.

Harry comes over to him, sitting on the edge of the bed level with Louis’ chest. “I couldn’t,” he says, eyes soft as he looks down at Louis. “You were smiling in your sleep.”

Louis smiles a little now, humming in contentment as Harry leans down to kiss his lips, his cheeks, his forehead, his closed eyelids.

Louis doesn’t hear him leave.

*

Louis has a week left of medical leave, but he finds the idea of going back to work almost absurd. It seems like something that belonged to a different time... a different him.

Harry was in his life less than two weeks, but everything has changed. It’s not just Harry, either. Although his bruises are fading, the memories of his captivity lurk at the back of his mind.

He eats through the leftovers from Harry’s cooking, and plays piano until Mrs. Dumphy threatens to call the police. He watches television with Niall and keeps in touch with Harry only through the Scrabble app on his phone. After his first few texts asking how Louis is doing go unanswered, Harry still keeps up the texts, but they’re simple and don’t require an answer: little details about his day or something interesting or silly he wanted to share. Louis expects every text to be the last, and is surprised when there’s a new one every time.

Harry’s bed smells like him—the sheets need a wash, but Louis is stretching it out as long as he can—and Harry left his Packers hoodie, as well as a jumper. Louis even filched a tee shirt... but he’s still wary every time he closes his eyes at night. He knows it’s only a matter of time before the dreams come back, after all.

And, no matter how good they were together, it doesn’t mean Harry won’t freak out and leave him when it all starts up again. Louis wants Harry, more than anything. He wants Harry to want him. But he’s so scared.  

It’s 1:04 AM when he makes the decision, a split second before he hits the dial button.

He knows she suffers from insomnia; he follows her on twitter and he knows this is one of the nights he’ll find her awake.

She picks up at the second tone, even though it’s been three years. Three years with no more than a birthday and Christmas card, and a envelope with some cash and flowers when she graduated college in June.

“Louis,” she says. He can’t read her tone.

“Hey, Fiz.”

Louis tells her everything. And he _shouldn’t_. A part of him is screaming to stop being so selfish—she’s his younger sister, just out of college, he shouldn’t burden her with all of it. But she’s the only person he knows who can understand.

She’d come to him when she turned thirteen and told him, even though he’d never talked to her about his own issues. She knew, though. Fizzy can communicate with ghosts, see them and hear them and talk to them. She doesn’t suffer dissociative episodes like he does, but she does have some dreams... and there’s the whole talking to dead people thing.

Louis hadn’t opened up to her even then. She was young, impressionable, maybe, and he’d hoped, wished, that it was all just something she’d made up to get his attention. It wasn’t, of course. But while Louis tried as hard as he could to avoid it, to hide it and hide _from_ it, Fizzy embraced it. She’d found an online support group of people like her... like _them_. Made it through college with a major in Sociology and a minor in Advertising, graduating top of her class. She has a boyfriend and a group of friends, and more followers on Instagram than some low level celebrities. And she helps people. Brings them peace. Louis is kind of in awe of her. But mostly she learned to just to _live_ with it, which Louis is still struggling to do.

“I’m so tired. So tired, Fizzy. Do you know how terrifying it is? To suddenly not know where you are or how you got there. To blank out and realize you’re doing something and you don’t know why.... Who says something like this won’t happen again?”

“I don’t,” she admits. “It’s different for me. But, Louis, it’s happened once in twenty-eight years. Who says it will happen again?”

“Still. I’m scared. I feel so... helpless. What do you do when you can’t trust yourself?”

Felicité doesn’t speak for a moment, humming in low her throat. “I know it’s a difficult thing to accept, but if you can’t trust yourself, you need to trust other people. You act as though you’re all alone, fighting against yourself and against the world. But you’re not alone.”

Louis takes a deep breath. “I can’t... I can’t expect people to take care of me, Fiz. That’s not fair.”

She clucks her tongue. “The people who love you want to help you, Louis. And it’s OK to need help. It’s OK.”

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. “For not calling. For bailing on you like that. On all of you.” She’d always written back to him, telling him about herself—every card received a response.

“I understand why you don’t want to see mum any more, but the twins are leaving for college soon. I know they’d want to see you. And Lottie. She never shuts up about you when she’s drunk. She’ll give you hell for a while, but she wants you back, Louis.”

Louis is crying quietly as she speaks. He misses his sisters. He’s been so alone and, maybe, just maybe, he needn’t have been.

“Thanks, Fiz. How’d you get so wise, hm?”

“I think talking to ghosts from an early age gave me an unfair advantage, I’ll admit.”

Louis huffs a wet laugh, which she echoes. “I love you, little sis.”

“I love you too. We’ll see each other soon.”

*

All of Louis’ boxes with his stuff fit in the back of Niall’s van. The piano he was shipping with a professional moving firm.

“Who’s going to help _me_ move?” Niall pretends to grumble as he slams the doors of the van closed.

“You have a small army of friends and acquaintances, I’m sure you’ll find someone,” Louis says with a chuckle. “In any case, bribe them with beer and pizza and you’re set. Though you might want to wait until the work is done before you bring everything out.”

Niall doubles over laughing, fumbling with his seat belt latch. “Good advice,” he wheezes.

Louis glances at Niall, biting his lip. “Besides, maybe you’ll change your mind about moving, after all.”

Niall checks the rear-view mirror as he prepares to back out of his parking spot. “Nah. I told you, I feel like a change. And in Virginia I’ll know you, and Harry. And Liam once he gets into the academy.”

Louis’ lips curve up into a smile. “Not getting rid of you, am I?”

Niall shoots him a grin before looking forward to focus on the road. “Afraid not, mate.”

*

“Not joining us for drinks?” James asks as he closes down the store.

The display window is lit gold from the metal instruments and reflecting off the polished wood of the strings. ‘Corden’s’ is renown for its quality musical instruments and extensive collection of classical music CDs, vinyls, sheet paper, instruction and history books. Louis has been working there for almost six months now. He works nine to five and goes out for drinks with his coworkers every Thursday. He’s become especially good friends with the owner, James.

“Not tonight. Date night.”

James wolf whistles. “Ah. Harry’s back, is he?”

Louis can’t help the smile that spreads across his face. “He got back last night. Pet his turtle, showered, and was out like a light in five minutes.”

James laughs. “We have to get together again. Can you do lunch on Sunday?” He claps a hand to his forehead. “Oh, wait. I’ll get back to you on that, I’m not sure if Julia has to work. She might have a shift at the ER.”

Before Louis can answer his phone beeps.

Niall sends him a text every day at 5:05 PM on the dot to make sure he’s fine and checks in on him regularly when Harry’s away on a case. Niall has a new job as a sound technician at a radio station, and is angling for a radio host job in the future. Louis isn’t sure how he does it. Niall is busy—active socially, working, taking a course on voice acting—but he never forgets to check in on Louis.

Louis would protest. _Has_ protested about the trouble it is, for both Niall and Harry. But he can't deny it’s helped. Things have been better, even if in April Niall had to pick him up after he took a bus out of town, and once in June he had missed work, driving up to an office building instead and getting held by security when he tried to get inside without a pass. It might have felt invasive to have two people keeping tabs on him all the time, but they’re people he trusts and who love him, and all he feels is safe.

“That’s Niall, right?” James asks. He’s a lot more observant than people imagine him to be at first sight. “Tell him I’m going to beat his tiny arse at darts tonight.”

Louis laughs. “What we need is a repeat of Karaoke night.”

He still has dreams, too. Less than he used to since he shares a bed with Harry regularly. And always sleeps in a bed that smells like Harry. And has a closet-full of clothes at his disposal that smell like him. But he still gets them. Has still woken up in cold sweat with blood under his nails from scratching at himself, trying to stop the burning. But this time Harry was there to hold him while he cried under the shower.

He writes the dreams down and gives them to Harry, who has contacts in the FBI. Louis doesn’t ask who, or what they do with it, and no one ever bothers him directly. It’s detached, and that’s how Louis prefers it.

“Definitely,” James agrees. He glances at his watch. “I’d best get going or the others won’t wait and I’ll end up getting an entire order of chicken wings just for myself when I’m supposed to be cutting back.”

“Doctor’s orders,” Louis jokes, reaching out to pat James. He’s still very hesitant to touch people besides Harry and Niall, and his sisters, who had visited twice, but he’s working on it.

He says goodbye to James and heads home. He lives close enough to walk to the flat. He greets one of their neighbors as he goes up the stairs and fits the key in the lock with half a smile on his face.

“Hi.” Harry is stretched out on the couch in a bathrobe, hair damp. He smells like shampoo and soap and like Harry. Louis tweaks his bare, damp toes, then flops on top of him, after kicking off his shoes, without any qualms even though he’s put on some weight. Harry insists that being underweight was involved in why Louis felt so down all the time before, and always makes sure that Louis eats.

Harry giggles when Louis rubs his cheek against the triangle of Harry's bare chest left exposed by the bathrobe, tickling him.

“Hello, sleepyhead. I had to crawl out from under you this morning. I couldn’t get you to move,” Louis teases.

Harry cackles and pecks his lips. “Sorry. I was exhausted. But I’m all energized for tonight.” He waggles his eyebrows ridiculously.

Louis laughs and tightens his arms around him. “Don’t count your eggs, Harold. We still have to go out to dinner.”

Another change is that Louis is having sex. Frequent and fulfilling sex, and it’s never brought anything but relief and pleasure. His libido had improved when he’d weaned himself off the sleeping pills. He still takes them sometimes, if Harry’s going to be gone for more than two days. But he sticks to the recommended dosage, usually, and he doesn’t chase them with alcohol.

“I’m a master of the wine and dine,” Harry says with mock indignation. “I’ve never failed to get in your pants yet.”

Louis laughs, pinches Harry’s sides to make him squeal. “Are you saying I’m easy?”

Harry stays conspicuously silent and they both burst out laughing.

“I love you, Lou,” Harry says, hauling him up for a kiss.

Louis smiles against his mouth. “I love you too.”

He loves Harry more than anything. And he feels loved in return in a way he never thought was possible for him.They make each other laugh a lot. And sometimes they hold each other when they cry. And sometimes they just need a moment of silence while holding hands. And things aren’t perfect, but Louis is happy.


End file.
